The Red Slash
by paracuties
Summary: In a life where a small boy has already experienced possibly all the harsh cruelties of the world, things take a different turn. For the better, that is. Drafted into ANBU at a young age, Uzumaki-Namikaze Naruto is not your typical genin. [AU, ANBU!Naruto]
1. Chapter 1

**Meh. I don't like this beginning chapter. It's just an introduction, though. I know it's a really over-used idea, but I've had this sitting in my flashdrive for a while so I wanted to post it. **

…

A boy no older than twelve burst through the trees at an amazing speed, racing back to the ANBU Headquarters to report and quickly get to school. It was around 2 am, but he'd have to get at least a bit of sleep before school started at 7. Silently, he pressed his hand to the seal, pushed in a bit of his chakra, and when it was recognized, watched the door silently swing open to let him in. The ANBU raced inside, his black clothes allowing him to become almost invisible in the shadowed hallways except for the telltale glint of his katana strapped perpendicularly to the standard wakizashi on his back, the hilt lifted just a centimeter because of his hurry. His katana was two feet long and specifically created for him after he had shown a tendency for kenjutsu as well, having already specialized in ninjutsu and taijutsu. ANBU needed their own specific weapons in order to complete their A-ranked or S-ranked or possibly even higher ranking mission as easily as possible, and the boy was no different.

He knocked quietly, handed in his report and the body of the enemy he had recently assassinated sealed inside a scroll to the Hokage, was dismissed, and proceeded to hurry back to his small apartment. The few hours of sleep he caught passed quickly, and suddenly it was 6:45 am before he could even blink.

"Shoot!" He cursed a few more choice words, some a variation of the first word and others not, struggling to pull on the orange jumpsuit over his ANBU outfit he had fallen asleep in. After going through a quick morning routine, one which sadly did not consist of a shower, the boy checked his tattoo was covered before grabbing a bowl of ramen from Ichiraku's and hurrying to school. He ate it along the way, moving along slowly, trying to enjoy the new beef miso soup, sprinkled with more onions and some other unidentifiable—at least to him—vegetable, but it was good, so he just slurped it down with the rest. At least it didn't smell like any known poisonous plant.

Once at school, he hurried into his classroom, almost 20 minutes late, called out an, "Iruka-sensei, I'm here!" before quickly claiming his seat in the back row. The class snickered, except for some who were too lazy to and some who were too "cool" to. Yes, he could've set an internal alarm clock to get up on time, and yes, he could've gobbled up his meal in five minutes (there were times on ANBU missions he had to eat in less time than even that), but he didn't want to. Besides, Iruka-sensei was pretty lenient with him.

"Naruto! Stay after school again, today! When will you ever learn your lesson?"

Or maybe not so lenient this time. "Yes, Iruka-sensei," he sighed.

Today was a history lesson, and since he already knew all the Academy would teach and more, there was no need to pay attention. Well, really, there was no need to pay attention to anything at any time at all, since anything they taught, he had already learned in ANBU. But he liked to give respect to the brown-haired chuunin, who cared for him like an older brother or even…a father. It felt nice to be cared for in that way.

Iruka-sensei started explaining the progression of the Daimyo of Konoha over the years, until to the current Daimyo, who was doing something or other for Konohagakure, Leaf Village. Naruto did try to pay attention, really, but found his eyes drawn to his charge. The mission assigned to him years ago. He hadn't been a fully-fledged ANBU then, as no six year old could ever, no matter how much of a prodigy or hard worker or both, be able to get that far, but as he continued through the Academy, maintaining a cheerful, dumb cover, he had advanced to be captain of a team, better than anyone could be at killing. It was a sad thought.

He laughed.

"Uzumaki! Would you like to explain what you're finding so funny about the Fourth Hokage, the Yondaime?"

Ah, so they had moved from Daimyos to Hokages. Well. He cleared his throat.

"Well…I just thought, what if the Fourth Hokage wasn't actually that nice-looking? And he was just a smelly, old man underneath a henge, like the old man?"

Heh. Pretending he thought that of his own father felt strange.

Iruka knew, with the "old man" comment, he was referring to their current Hokage, the Sandaime.

"Don't be so rude!" Iruka chucked a chalkboard eraser at Naruto for good measure. Naruto ducked.

"Another hour added to the hour after school!"

He groaned internally. He wouldn't be able to get dinner then, because he'd have to report to the ANBU Headquarters by 5:30 pm. School ended at 3:30 pm. He cringed. He'd definitely be late.

"Aww, come on, Ir—"

"Do you want me to add on more time?"

Naruto gulped. He shook his head, and the rest of the day passed by uneventfully.

After staying for the allotted time and receiving a good 'ol lecture from Iruka-sensei, the blond raced out, shedding his orange suit and tossing it in his apartment before grabbing his fox mask and running at full speed towards Headquarters.

Ha. Him, being the container for the demon fox, Kyuubi no Kitsune, was called Kitsune, or Fox, as his code name. His moniker, known throughout the village as one of the most feared shinobi, was the Red Slash. Yes, how ironic. Again. Considering the fact that he contained a demon, which tended to be imagined as a _red _made-of-lava, evil being, and his chakra affinity was wind—wind "slashed" at you, right…? Okay, so maybe that was pushing it. In all reality, the moniker meant if you saw the Red Slash as your enemy, you were as good as dead—the last thing you'd see would be a red slash. Hm. That didn't make sense. How would his moniker have come about if all his opponents were dead? Except for a certain few…

But anyway, he arrived ten minutes late, with the backpack containing all the scrolls he always sealed everything in slung over his shoulder. At least he wasn't as late as Hatake Kakashi, one of his team members that he was the leader of, was. Kakashi had been leading a life of depression, self-wrecking, and guilt for as long as he could remember. But when he had befriended him when he was seven, the ANBU had recovered a little, and had personally requested to be on his team after quitting the role of an ANBU team captain when Naruto, or Kitsune, was skilled enough to be lead an entire team of ANBU.

Fortunately, nobody in ANBU knew who Kitsune was except for the ANBU commander. He had been the one to recruit him and help him, but that was a different story for another time.

"Kitsune…you're late." The woman who always handed out the missions frowned at him, although she couldn't see the young ANBU member's face.

He bowed slightly. "I am sorry, Amaya-san. I will be more punctual next time."

"Of course you will; I won't report you."

He sighed in relief. That would save him from a lot of trouble from explaining why he had misbehaved in class to the point of earning detention. Ridiculous, for a skilled, professional ANBU member. At that time, Kakashi chose to arrive, his shock of silver, gravity-defying hair brushing the top of the doorframe as he entered.

"You're late, Kakashi-san," Naruto told him, although it was kind of pointless.

"Maa, only a little, senpai," Kakashi murmured, seeming to smile. Amaya rolled her eyes.

"Here, Kitsune, your mission will last three days, at the most. You need to capture maybe four of twelve Kiri-nin attacking one of Fire Country's villages. They're Jounin, or high Chuunin. I'm sure you all can handle it."

They nodded, and with just a faint breeze, were gone, already heading towards the city indicated in their mission details.

…

"Inu, get One, I'll get Five—they seem to be combining their chakra affinities, although I know one of them is wind."

"Got it."

"Watch it, Neko!" Kitsune jumped forward and slashed at a man behind the ANBU member Neko, as she fought three opponents at once. She turned, her porcelain mask portraying the slight resemblance of a cat.

His slash decapitated the man, and the grown shinobi howled, clutching his bleeding chest, large amounts of blood spilling out every frantic beat his heart made. Naruto slammed the handle of his wakizashi onto the enemy's head, hard, then healed a bit of the man's injury, his hands glowing green before hauling him to Hikigaeru, the woman with the toad-like mask in charge of keeping their prisoners imprisoned and not too damaged.

Inu was still facing down One and Five, although judging by the red liquid seeping out of One's clothing and the red spatters in Inu's silver hair, he had gotten a good hit on at least one of his opponents. Kitsune jumped in, and used the wind against the man with wind affinity, as he had better control. People who used their chakra affinity often were obviously more talented, but they weren't ANBU for nothing. Kitsune was even _better_ than them at using his wind-type ninjutsu in battles. His katana came in contact with the wind Five was using to counter him, but he smirked and cut through that too, after wrapping the blade in wind. The men's screams were cut short as Kitsune hit them as well over the head. He stood up, surveying the damage.

"Good job, team, not too much damage to the surroundings and too little evidence for anybody to assume a battle took place, although Neko, seriously, remember to watch your back. Haven't I told you that already?"

Cat shrugged sheepishly. "Well, Kitsune-senpai, I know you'll always catch them before they get to me…"

"That's no excuse! And besides, it's not a guarantee."

Cat bowed slightly. "I'm sorry. I'll train that aspect more often."

Kitsune nodded. Then, he turned to Hikigaeru, silently asking her if their prisoners were stabilized enough so that they wouldn't die on the way back—after all, their mission was to capture, not kill. She nodded, and they bent down next to the four of them, the other eight destroyed with quick fire jutsus, placed in a single neat row. Neko, Boar, Inu, and Hikigaeru all reached into the unconscious men's pouches, but Boar suddenly halted.

"Stop! They have a sensor!"

Too late. Blindingly bright flashes of light immediately exploded in front of them, stinging their eyes and blowing up all their unconscious enemies, but unfortunately also extending the damage to them as well. They had all sensed it, instincts warning of an unknown danger seconds before the explosion had thrown them like rag dolls and propelled them into the branches of trees, sharp pieces of metal also exploding outward and embedding themselves into the ANBUs' skin. The two women, Neko and Hikigaeru, went immediately unconscious as they hit their heads on the trees, unable to react quickly enough, along with Boar—that bomb had to have been blown out with the force of at least 200 mph—and only Inu and Kitsune had been lucky enough to have been thrown higher in the air and have those few extra precious seconds to catch themselves.

They plunged into the branches of the surrounding trees, but at least on their feet, and hurried themselves to the terrible scene. Bits of human bodies were scattered everywhere, charred pieces lying around and the air immediately stinking of burning human flesh. That was not the horrifying part, though. It was normal enough. No, it was their teammates that caused them to widen their eyes and rush forward, blindly feeling for a heartbeat. Kitsune pressed on Neko's neck gently, his two fingers leaving a trail of someone's blood on her neck, straining to feel for even a slight pulse, and let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding when it was found. It was irregular though, so they had to be careful.

Inu was relieved when he found it on Hikigaeru and Boar, too, although theirs were stronger than Neko's. Neko had always been a little too reckless. He turned to his unit commander, the boy's black hair stained with rusty blood and clear gray eyes squeezed tight. It wasn't right for a child to have to do this, and commit these heinous acts of silent killers—something grown men often broke down over, but Kitsune refused to listen. No matter how much he tried to convince the young ANBU to quit, he stubbornly refused to "stop doing his duty", and said that it was for the better. He shook himself from his musings, carefully slinging two of his unconscious teammates both over his back, taking care not to jostle their wounds or worsen any of them, and adjusted them until they were both kind of half hanging on, half hanging off, side by side on his back. At least the two were both pretty lean people.

Kitsune stood too, doing the same, minus one teammate slumped on his small back, and they moved quickly and evenly, the older ANBU stumbling every now and then, his wounds not healing as fast as the boy's. But he had endured worse, so he would be fine. They landed in a clearing, where Kitsune stopped, and said, "Come on, Inu, hand me Boar. You're killing yourself."

"You're…you…you're also…exhaus—"

His voice cut off as he fell over, too much blood loss having caused him to faint. They had not had enough supplies to bandage Kakashi's wounds too, but he had shrugged it off, saying he was fine and that his wounds would not slow them down. What a liar. Kitsune shook his head, and focused what little chakra he hadn't used up to speed up his healing and heal up his would-have-been lethal wounds, then pressed scarred, rough hands on Kakashi's leg and back, applying green chakra on the worst wounds. When he was finished, the small ANBU pondered how he'd transport them, knowing he couldn't seal them into his scrolls he had made to be able to seal in human beings, or other living things, as it would cause a little strain on their bodies. He really didn't think they could handle anymore. But he could use the wind. Kitsune manipulated the wind to carry the three, maneuvered them behind him so that they would always follow his path and not collide with any branches or other objects before taking off again, letting the wind take care of them.

...

Seven hours passed, with multiple breaks inserted here and there when he felt he was going to faint. It had taken them five hours to get from Leaf Village to their destination, but he knew they still had about a quarter of the way to go. Boar had woken up, but then fallen asleep after Naruto had forced some water down his throat. The women hadn't, and Kakashi hadn't either. They were still in danger, and Kitsune couldn't stop now. His chakra had replenished a tiny bit, so he picked them up again, and sped off.

…

The two guards rushed over to the five of them, taking two people at a time off of the wind. Naruto dropped to the ground, exhausted, unable to maintain his henge any longer—of course he hadn't kept it up while carrying his team through the forest; that would have been stupid—but he couldn't let the guards know he was Uzumaki Naruto, the stupid little boy still enrolled in the Academy. They would blabber it away to anyone and everyone, and his long-standing mission would end as a failure. No. Fortunately, during that small lapse, they had been tending to the other shinobi's wounds, and only afterwards, five minutes later, had glanced over to the blond-turned-back-to-black-haired boy, eyes still tight with worry. They were relieved to see him stand up and walk over as if he was not tired at all, and when the Red Slash instructed them to bring his soldiers to the hospital, they complied immediately. That left Naruto standing at the gates alone, and he sat down at one of the posts, keeping a lazy eye out for any intruders—after all, it couldn't do to have anyone infiltrate the village, no matter how little time it took for the original guards to get back—and rested, waiting.

Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu came back eight minutes later, only to see the small boy still standing—or in his case, sitting—guard, waiting for their return. He sensed the two beings, and turned around, gave a lazy wave and smiled, although they couldn't see that behind his black mask wrapped around his nose and mouth, and walked back to his apartment. His henge disappeared as he rounded the corner, and he walked back home, his blue eyes drooping as he stumbled into bed. He didn't even bother to check for the usual drunks that liked to beat up the "helpless" little Naruto.

…

**Weird end, but like my other story, it's also 'cause I have all of it written in one big word doc and I wasn't sure where to put chapter breaks. I should've done that originally…**

**Anyway. Thanks for reading! No flames please.**

**~paracuties**


	2. Chapter 2

**So...I know, it took me a while to update. I realized I forgot to put the disclaimer last chapter, so:**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Do I look like I'm Japanese?**

**Some dude: Yeah.**

**Me: Excuse me? I am **_**Chinese, **_**thank you very much. **

**Same dude: Same difference. **

**Racist!**

**Anyway. I have no clue why I just put that in there...but back to the point. I am very, very disappointed in all of you. I have 29 followers and 16 favorites, which I am seriously, really seriously happy about, but—**

**Three reviews. ...Three. My very first fanfiction's first chapter had more than that. Albeit, only by one, but I'd think I have greater writing skill compared to then, which should warrant more reviews...? Whatever. Anyway, I am sincerely hoping more of you will review. And thank you, JustFabulous, suicune4ever, and Narutoswife03281997! Congratulations, you are the first three to have given me motivation to continue posting! **

**suicune4ever: In most actions, he will; he'll be that noble guy that worries about friends and always tries to save them, but this is an AU. Fanfiction's existence—although most fanfiction writers do not seem to know this—is to reveal something new about a character. "If Naruto had...*some difference universe, some different action, etc.*, what would have happened?"**

**In my case I'm putting him in the ANBU universe. In the ANBU universe, what would have happened to him? Well, this fic is the result of that.**

**Enjoy! (Congrats, by the way, to whoever read through my huge A/N.)**

…

Kitsune's internal alarm clock jerked him awake, and he realized he had fallen asleep in his ANBU gear. Again. He stripped off his bloody and ripped clothing, took a quick shower, and put on another pair of his ANBU clothing, taking a look at the clock, which read 4:23 am. Wait…crap, last night he'd forgotten to report! Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he pulled on his black, cloth mask, grabbed his broken ANBU mask, and _shunshined _to the Hokage's office, intent on delivering his report he had written on the way there. It was a sloppy, messy report, but it was there, and he placed it on his commander's desk, waiting to be allowed to explain a couple of things. His commander read through the illegible handwriting, before looking at the ANBU and nodding, a signal for him to speak.

"I'm sorry. Our mission failed. We were careless to underestimate them, or at least their equipment, and reached into their pouches without thinking to check for any dangers. Every single one of their pouches, or at least the ones we reached into, reacted to the foreign chakra and immediately sent a signal to their special bombs that would blow shrapnel everywhere, along with sending anything nearby into speeds of at least 200 miles per hour.

"I presume that they had already planned to die instead of reveal what they were doing in the case that they were captured, and we were unable to retrieve their bodies, while also sustaining injuries to ourselves."

His commander nodded, crumpling up the report and tossing it into the waste basket at the far end of the room. It landed directly into the center of it.

"Your report is junk, Kitsune. I couldn't read a single thing. But thank you for remembering to give a verbal report, at least, and I will give your team two weeks off to heal. Your Academy teacher has already been notified you will be gone for another day; today. But if you're up for it, you can still go."

Kitsune nodded. "Yes, I will go today, and take care of Mizuki before he goes and causes trouble. I have already found his notes inside the briefcase he carries around everywhere he goes, where he planned out what he would have been doing on this self-employed mission. Lucky me, for him to do such a thing. I took them, and left a copy I forged in his briefcase, making sure he would not detect any remnants of my chakra on the paper. I made sure the lettering was the exact same."

Kitsune handed the notes to his commander, and the Hokage briefly looked over them, eyes sharp. They needed the evidence for this mission to take place; they would be killing Mizuki tonight, after they forced him to confess.

…

"Hey, Iruka-sensei! What're we doing today?" Naruto shouted, glancing around the room and noticing that he was actually early, considering only Sasuke and Shino were there with their teacher. Well, he hadn't been able to fall asleep after waking up at 4-something a.m., the near-deaths of his teammates still fresh in his mind.

"Naruto?" Iruka looked tremendously surprised, and slightly relieved, because he had been wondering why Naruto was yet again, told by the ANBU guarding him, that he was sick. It had already been two days, and Naruto was just not one to get sick. Even during the winter when almost everyone was home with a fever, Naruto would sit in class smiling brightly, without even a slight sniffle. And he was an orphan, to put it bluntly. Parents wouldn't be there to take care of him; no one was there making sure he was sleeping and eating healthily. Yet he appeared fine anyway, every single day, so he knew something was wrong. Fortunately, today he had shown up again, looking perfectly fine as usual…except for the fact that there were those telltale signs of tiredness. The shadows and bags under his eyes proved that, and his smile was just slightly off. And then Iruka shook his head. There was no way that Naruto would have to stay up so late to get that tired; he must've been looking too hard and trying to dig up clues so hard he was imagining things.

He looked up again from his paperwork to see Naruto bothering Sasuke, who sat there stonily and only after being poked by the blond multiple times did he try and take a swing at Naruto. Naruto flipped back sloppily, landing on the desk in front of Shino, who stood up and moved away from the oncoming fight.

"Boys, don't fight inside the room, we'll have plenty of that later," Iruka warned.

Naruto laughed, settling into his seat in the back row. So they were sparring today, then, judging on what Iruka had said. Sasuke sat back down with a _humph_, his nose turning upwards slightly. Naruto smirked. He'd have to provoke his charge a couple more times in order to gain some sort of relationship between them, even if it was just a mere rivalry. A rivalry was better than nothing, and rivalries tended to become slightly violent friendships, as long as they weren't rivalries between people of different countries. That was different. That was…more on the serious side.

More and more students filed in after that, the typical cat-fight breaking out between Sakura and Ino of who would sit next to Sasuke—personally, he thought they were all just a bunch of pathetic excuses imagining the job of kunoichi filled with romance and whatever they thought—until Iruka broke them up and had Shikamaru sit next to him. Heh. Shikamaru was a genius, really, based on what he had gleaned from his random bouts of sudden intelligence. But he was terribly lazy, too, and that was the only reason he was one of the students at the bottom of the class. Otherwise, he could probably top even Sasuke and Sakura in academics, while also having the ability to out-maneuver any of them out on the field.

As the rest of the students filed in, Iruka-sensei announced they'd be participating in a class tournament today, after reviewing the basic katas, jutsu, and weapon-usage techniques they could utilize during their fight. They stretched outside, the green, green grass leaving stains on their clothes, which resulted in most of the girls complaining about the terrible grass stains that would most likely not come out. The boys snickered at the girls' plight, which then resulted in the girls pounding them into the ground. Naruto snickered at that.

While they had been stretching, Iruka-sensei had been going over the rules, and had stopped to separate the small arguments going on. He then continued with the rules that he always repeated before a tournament, and Naruto tuned him out, rather preferring to study his classmates. The girls, as usual, appeared nervous, especially Hyuuga Hinata, although Sakura and Ino were arguing again about who would beat whom in a match against each other. He could see the tension lined in their shoulders, though, afraid they'd go up against a strong opponent.

Iruka-sensei finished, and then called out who would go against whom, and first up just happened to be Sakura and Ino. They started clawing at each other after throwing a couple of weak punches and kicks, although at least the Yamanaka seemed to have a certain rhythm and look to her stance as she stepped forward and swung her foot into the pinky's stomach. The girl collapsed, wheezing, and Iruka called the match for Ino as winner.

…

The rest of the matches went fairly quickly, with me going against Shikamaru and him forfeiting the match after it extended longer than five minutes. Then, I was paired with Sasuke, and I rolled my eyes inwardly. I'd have to act more tired and slow, about one-twelfth of my true skill, just so the rookie would beat the dead-last, as expected.

In the middle of the match, as I purposefully punched too slowly and too far off to the left to allow Sasuke grab my arm and fling me to the ground, I felt my ANBU tattoo start burning, grabbing my attention. My eyes widened, and I held both hands up, surrendering, then whined to Iruka that I needed to go the bathroom _real badly, _and zipped off in that direction, before performing a quick _shunshin_ to the ANBU Headquarters out of sight of the class. In the blink of an eye, many ANBU appeared in front of the main entrance, and we filed in, waiting for the bad news from our ANBU commander. Although we technically directly served the Hokage, there was still an ANBU Commander like there was a Jounin Commander, to oversee us and make sure we were staying in line. The Hokage couldn't do everything. I stood off the side of the meeting room, afraid…of something. I had a slight premonition something was about to happen. Something bad.

My team was missing from the room, of course, and quite a couple of others too, seeing as they were the ones that patrolled or kept guard in the village, and couldn't suddenly leave it unpatrolled because of urgent news. The news would be relayed to them one way or another. Although, now that I noticed, it wasn't because of that. All of the ANBU currently present were ANBU captains.

We waited silently, as we were all trained to obey our superiors without question, and our commander opened his mouth to begin. And suddenly fell over. Literally, just flopped over and…what? The couple people closest were immediately hoisting him up, checking for a pulse, if he was breathing, any signs of life…

"He's dead," one announced gravely. The rest stood up in agreement, and we all stared at the body, completely lost at to what we were supposed to do. Why had we been summoned? Had he been somehow alerted to the fact that he was going to die in a few moments, and tried to call for our help? I stepped forward.

"First things first. We need to tell the Hokage."

"Um…Kitsune? Why are you wearing that?"

I looked down. I was still wearing the ridiculous orange jumpsuit. Crap. At least I had remembered to put up my usual henge for my face and mask the fox's chakra, though. It had become so much of a regular routine that I didn't even notice doing the action anymore.

"Uh…just a disguise. But that doesn't matter right now. Do you want me to seal the body into a scroll?"

They contemplated it for a little bit, but someone called out, "No, because that could mess with the remnants of any chakra left on him, which could end up being some form of clue."

I nodded. "Well then, we should disguise him…"

I thought for a little bit. Then, I put a henge on him, his hair growing out longer and fading from brown to blond, his 6' height turning into 5'8". His clothing flickered into civilian clothing, and a couple red slashes appeared on his chest to seem as if he'd died from wounds on his chest. No one would get suspicious, that way, if anyone saw the ANBU escorting a dead body to the Hokage's office. I examined it for flaws. None. The rest mostly nodded, a couple of them went with me for the visit to the Sandaime, and the people leftover went to work looking around in his office.

One of them, Hedgehog, carried the body, and the rest of us circled around him while moving as fast as we could along the top of the buildings. A couple other jounin or chuunin had to skirt around us, staring at the body as we whipped by. I was glad I had put up the henge. We entered through the window, surprising the Hokage when he realized we were escorting a dead body. I dropped the henge, surprising the Hokage even further, and he stood up, running around the desk and crouching down to study our dead commander. He sighed, ran a hand over his usually-jovial-now-turned-weary face, and stood up again, looking at all of us and waiting for an explanation. I quickly summarized the whole event, and asked him in a blank voice, "What would you like us to do, Hokage-sama?"

"Who was the one who first took control of the situation?"

The question threw us off, and there was a pause as we digested the inquiry. I stepped forward.

"I did."

Nobody objected, and he raised his eyebrows.

"Really."

We waited.

"Well, then how would you like to be commander of the ANBU?"

Dead silence reigned over the entire room. Trained as we were to respond immediately and effectively to any kind of situation whatsoever, we couldn't help but be stunned. Me especially, seeing as how I was the person in question. I, a little 12 year old, although an immensely strong shinobi, being the commander of all the ANBU…wasn't that a little too much? No matter how much, as Naruto, I wanted to reach Hokage—I did, but I had to think logically—almost none of the ANBU would accept this easily. The others, as I had predicted, did not seem very happy about this situation either, but the Hokage interrupted our confused or angry thoughts.

"I cannot allow Danzo to try and take over all the ANBU and incorporate you all into his Root. The ANBU are upgraded to the position of captain for a reason—one, being that they have the skill and other requirements for it, and two, that I trust them completely. I trust every single one of you, as you must know, but if Danzo got to you, I couldn't allow the ANBU to be assigned so many missions and other important events with such freedom and independence of the Hokage. So I asked who had first gone forward and been the leader, and it ends up…being Kitsune."

We nodded. It made sense, yet I wasn't sure I would be able to gain all the respect of them, what with being a 12 year old.

The Sandaime cleared his throat.

"I will inform the rest of the ANBU; we will all meet in the ANBU Headquarters. This needs to be made clear that you, Kitsune, are the new commander. I'm assuming you accept the position."

He turned away, dismissing us, and we returned to the Headquarters, where the rest of the ANBU captains were still investigating the crime scene. I mulled over the new situation. I was ANBU commander. _ANBU commander. _That was the highest position, right behind Hokage—would I be able to perform every single little duty with as much as precision as I did now? What if I didn't want the job…? Yes, it was high-ranking, high-paying, and demanded much respect. It was also something assigned to me from the Hokage, and I was sworn to obey my Hokage without question. I would have to take the job, whether it was aligned with my personal preference or not.

When they noticed our return, they stopped, and a moment later all the ANBU in the village appeared. There were, total, about fifteen ANBU captains, and most ANBU teams consisted of five people; meaning, there were 73 people in the room. One of the teams had been led by the previous commander, and since he was gone, that was one less; another team had always had only four people. Of course, there were many more ANBU members than that, the groups dividing into sub-captains and sub-people or whatever, random ANBU grouping together at times to form random groups. They were out on the field currently, or if they weren't, were only random ANBU that were too low-level to be of much importance. And if they obeyed their other superiors, then they'd have to obey the next-to-highest-superior. Me.

The couple newbies that happened to test high enough and gain a high-enough rank whispered among each other until their captain snapped at them and the room immediately quieted. The air weighed with something strange, and a heavy silence fell over the room. Once that happened, the Hokage appeared in a quiet swirl of leaves.

"Everyone," he said gravely, "I have come to deliver bad news. Your ANBU commander was murdered."

It seemed like he was not one to be direct…

He held up a hand impatiently to keep us from exploding in shouts.

"Your captains were called, apparently, and when they arrived, he suddenly fainted, or something of the sort, and passed away.

"So I, when I heard the news, appointed the new commander immediately, based on previous considerations as well as who had first taken care of the situation. I know you all will want say it is probably rash and try to tell me I haven't thought through it properly just yet, but until otherwise, you are to give him your utmost respect."

The Hokage motioned at me, and I walked forward to the front of the room, feeling slightly nervous. I hadn't felt nervous at all in…three, four years? Until now, of course. Huh.

As everybody realized I, the 12-year-old Red Slash, was to be our commander, they seemed to stiffen. Glares were directed at me, and I could tell because we had taken off our masks in respect of the Sandaime. Mine was broken of course, so I had not needed to take it off in the first place, but I needed another one—the fourth replacement in a month—but otherwise…wait. Why was everybody looking at me so expectantly? Was I supposed to deliver a speech or something? I looked over to the Sandaime, but he was already gone. Whoa. Had I seriously been that wrapped up in my own thoughts?

I strolled over to the commander's desk—no, it was my desk now—and then turned to them.

"The couple of you involved in Torture and Investigations—I'm pretty sure you know what to do. Find what happened to our old commander. We can't have a murderer running loose around here. The ones on guard duty—I believe it is time to switch out; report to Amaya-san for your missions, or if you would like to request leave for a period of time, please come to me afterwards and I will look through your files briefly and check that you are eligible. And of course, the rest of you, return to your patrols, or whatever else you were doing, and watch out for any suspicious character. Make sure the Sandaime isn't harmed."

There was an odd, tight sensation within my chest, and a strange burning behind my eyes. I realized I cared for my commander. He had saved me, all those years back. True, it was probably more for his own benefits than caring for a poor orphaned boy, but he had been, at the time, the only person to not see me as some demon or monster other than "Jiji," the Hokage.

…

"_Get him! Don't let him escape!" the man I had tried to pickpocket hollered, anxiously waiting for the ANBU to capture the evil little demon. Me. However, I was starving and exhausted and shaking with thirst, so the only way to survive was to steal. Or scavenge in the trash, but I hated doing that. It made me feel lowered, feel like a disgusting little rat, pushed around by all the towering, looming humans._

_Pumping my legs as hard as I could, I started to become hopeful, knowing that my hideout was just a couple of yards away. I skidded around the corner, the rain causing me to slip and slide a bit before catching myself, heart pounding and breath coming out in gasps, and it just so happened that the ANBU commander was standing there, dark and imposing. _

_Before I could even so much as blink, he had already roughly gripped my wrists and wrestled the stolen wallet away. I cried out, but I couldn't get it back now. The only way to get out of here was to run. I wrenched my wrists away by some miracle, removed the sewer top, the rough sides of the hole scratching my arms as I dropped down, splashing into the dirty water below. And then I rigged the trap, and ran. I shot down the dank tunnel, peering back behind my shoulder multiple times and imagining the ANBU catching up, ready with handcuffs. That was the only thing keeping me from stopping. By the time I reached the place only I visited, as far as I knew, I was exhausted, and hungrier than ever. Being a homeless orphan sucked, especially when that was all I had ever known since I had memory. _

_Which was probably around two years ago, when I was three years old. I wasn't sure if I had parents; if I did, I didn't remember them. Did they die? Did they abandon me? That thought hurt, but it had already been dulled to the point of just a minor twinge, seeing as how I had obsessed over it for so long already. I could care less right now anyway, given my current situation. _

_After peeking through the cracks, the rain draining into the sewer I was trying to get a good look of my surroundings through and occasionally dripping into my eyes, which didn't feel too great, I was positive there wasn't anyone around. I didn't know just how strong and powerful ninja could be at that age; it was quite a mistake on my end. I crawled out cautiously, shivering and soaked to the bone, and darted under the slight cover of trees. It wasn't much, but it'd be better than standing out in the open. I wrung out my tattered clothing, standing there in a pair of just as threadbare boxers, and after putting them back on, rolled around in the dirt to feel warmer. It kind of dried me off, at least. Piles and piles of leaves were gathered, and I collected them around a certain spot at the base of a tree before snuggling in and wishing to just go to sleep. The leaves tickled, and I sneezed, blowing a bunch away. Ugh. I was too cold and weak to go get them though, and squeezing my bony, goose-bumped arms, drifted off to sleep, dreaming of an ANBU mask, the mask I recognized as the commander's mask, staring at me right in the face. _

…_Wait. I screamed, the shrill sound causing him to jerk back, and darted off again, adrenaline pumping through my veins once again and making me forget the cold temporarily. There was only wild, burning fear. I stumbled, once, twice, and then tripped over a particularly large rock, root, whatever it was—it didn't matter, and lay sprawled on the forest floor, too tired and dizzy to move any further. I had a runny nose, stinging scratches almost immediately healing were crisscrossed on my arms, and I was completely frustrated with my inability to acquire some food. The ANBU crouched in front of me, and I felt ashamed that he was looking at me in those clean, ninja clothing, with shiny new armguards and other equipment strapped onto him, while I was just this scrawny, starving little kid with nothing to call his own but the frayed, scummy pieces of clothing on his back. I refused to cry though, unwilling to humiliate myself any further, and then he suddenly, without warning, yanked me up and threw me over his shoulder. I wiggled around feebly, but it was impossible to get away in my condition, so I just gave in to the exhaustion, hunger, and residue fear, falling asleep draped over his shoulder. _

…

_The ANBU commander was a little nervous for the boy. He had brought him into the Hokage's office, and the Hokage had suddenly lurched up out of his chair and was holding the boy gently and tenderly in a flash, placing him on a couch and removing the dirty clothes (if they could even be called clothes), then drying him with a blanket and draping another one over him. He had stared at the boy's face so regretfully, eyes filled with sorrow as he examined the sharp contours of the young child, the hollow cheeks and emaciated figure indicating the boy lived a harsh life. Only then did he look up at the ANBU commander and thank him, eyes shining with true gratitude. The ANBU commander had bowed, telling him there was no need to thank him, and then proceeded to give the details of why Naruto was currently in the Hokage's office. _

"_I've been searching for him for so long…and only now he decided to pick the pocket of someone outside of the red light district? No wonder I couldn't find him; the people of the red light district don't like us snooping. Poor child…he's been living all alone by himself in that kind of place…," the Sandaime seemed to be murmuring to himself more than to the ANBU commander now, but then seemed to gather his thoughts and straighten up, staring at him in the eye._

"_You brought him here for a reason. What do you plan on doing with him now?"_

_The question made him hesitate. He didn't want to just come out and say that the boy was pretty clever and he wanted to recruit young kids to train them as killing machines, because he really wasn't that terrible of a man. Unfortunately, that was part of the reason—not to train him as a killing machine necessarily, an emotionless shinobi was just torture to the individual even if they didn't realize it, but to train him as an ANBU. He did care for the boy however, and voiced all of that aloud to the man known as Sarutobi-sama. _

_They both stood there in silence, listening to the rain beating in torrents on the window, while studying the still-asleep boy. _

"_I suppose there is no better option," the Hokage said reluctantly. The ANBU nodded. The deal was sealed, and Naruto would lead the life of a shinobi from then on, training hard every waking hour for the next couple of years and advancing swiftly, his growing mind able to accept the new concepts quickly and easily. _

…

I continued watching the very competent shinobi and kunoichi, all of the ANBU, start on their given tasks, then left, appearing just a couple feet away from the academy entrance on a well-hidden tree branch, and waiting for a good time to slip in. Good thing I was still wearing the orange jumpsuit, after all. It would have been way too bothersome to change in and out of it. Iruka and Mizuki had long already led the students into the classroom, having given up waiting for me. I had the feeling I'd be in for a long lecture once I got back. Sighing, I jumped down, walked inside casually, and peeked inside the classroom door, purposely allowing Iruka to sense my chakra signature and notice me there. He talked to Mizuki, and Mizuki started up where Iruka left off, while he stalked towards the door, a pissed off expression on his face. I waited out in the hallway, leaning casually against the wall, when the door opened, closed, and Iruka stood there, waiting for an explanation.

"Ah, hi, Sensei," I said cheerfully, and he scowled.

"Naruto. _What took you practically an hour to go to the bathroom?_"

I grinned sheepishly. "Umm…indigestion?"

He looked grossed out. "I don't think so, Naruto. That's a lie, and you know it. Now tell me the truth."

"Aww, come on Sensei, I was annoyed at Sasuke, so I sat in a tree for a while, and I guess I fell asleep or something, because then I fell out of the tree…"

"_You fell out of a tree?!_ What were you thinking, sleeping in a tree?!"

I shrugged. He ranted for a couple moments, and I waited, until he finally sighed and rubbed his nose.

"Naruto…I hope you're not going to do this again. You've been gone from school a lot lately, and I don't want you to fail the test again. It's next week, you need to prepare, alright?"

I smiled. My heart warmed at seeing his concern. "Of course, Iruka-sensei! Thank you!"

I followed him back into the classroom, took my regular seat next to Kiba, and listened to his lesson on how we could improve ourselves. He had memorized every single one of our fights, imprinting it on his mind so that he could remember exactly what every single one of his students needed to work on. Exactly why he was so fit to be an Academy teacher; he cared for all his students extensively and equally, helping them whenever possible and giving them input in anything, so long as it was going to help them improve.

School ended with nothing else worth mentioning, and I strolled outside, my classmates rushing past me to greet their parents. It still ached, seeing those parents picking up their own kids my age so happily and nonchalantly, everybody taking them for granted. I felt empathy towards Sasuke, whose family was now gone, torn away from him by his older brother, no less.

My lips twisted in amusement as a bunch of girls cheerily waved to him and tried to give him a hug as they left, which he did not appreciate. He ducked under their flailing arms, gave me a helpless glance—huh?—and ran off, his speed allowing him to escape. I lazily wandered after him, but a specific building caught my eye. Oh yeah, I hadn't visited them yet…oops…I'd need to visit my teammates before I went and continued a job I hadn't even signed up for. Hm. Did that sound bitter?

Inside the hospital, I went up to the front desk, and opened my mouth to ask the receptionist where Hatake Kakashi and the rest of my team were. The woman gave me a quick, disgusted look before smoothing over her face and giving me a bland expression, and I wrinkled my forehead before realizing, yet again, that I was Naruto, the stupid, cheerful little boy. Ugh. Taking the Nara's line…how bothersome.

By the time I went back, removed the jumpsuit to reveal my ANBU clothes underneath, put on my fixed fox mask which I had received sealed inside a scroll from a messenger, and traveled to the hospital under the disguise as ANBU commander—er, no, I _am _the ANBU commander, I told myself, I just have separate identities—five minutes had passed. Why did this simple little thing take so long?

At the front desk, I handed her a couple photos of my team, and after she looked at them, trying to place a face to a name, she opened her mouth in surprise and furiously searched through the book of patients that they updated daily.

"They're in rooms 401, 402, and 403," she gave me a nervous smile, and I had to keep from bursting out laughing. Just changing my outfit and a bit of physical features, of all things, I could go from ridiculed and disgusted to feared and respected. How absurd.

I nodded at her, took back my hard-earned photos, and set in that direction. Only as I was wandering the hallways looking for the right door did I realize that I could've made a henge instead of changing. I kept myself from groaning aloud, as that would've attracted the unnecessary attention of the medic nin bustling everywhere. Or, even better, I could've just searched for their chakra signatures amongst all the rest, as I could identify them easily, and just entered through their window from outside. …Maybe I really was going crazy from sleep deprivation.

Shaking my head, I found the right door in a few more moments, and entered quietly, first trying to quell my irrational fear that Hikigaeru and Neko, or even Boar, had died. Of course they hadn't. And they wouldn't, as long as they remained on my team. I'd never allow that to happen, so long as I was their captain.

Stepping inside room 401, I noticed Neko and Hikigaeru were already awake, talking quietly to someone sitting next to them. Oh—it was Boar, and Inu suddenly came in behind me, holding a glass of water and startled to see someone right in front of the door.

"Hey, Inu," I greeted, and he smiled under his mask, indicated by the fabric shifting around and his eye crinkling upward.

"No need to be so formal," he commented, subtly pointing out to me that we could call each other by name and not code name—at least I could, he didn't know me as Naruto—and I shrugged.

"Thank you, Kitsune," a woman's voice said behind me, and I turned, noticing Hikigaeru giving me a wan smile.

"I would've died, all of us would've died, if you hadn't risked your life for us there; we're ANBU, we should be better…but yet again, you dragged our butts back home with every bit of strength you had left. Again. And so…I don't want to keep making you do that, and I don't want to be in those types of situations anymore. Not your fault of course; don't ever think it is. You need subordinates that are closer to your age, people that can be more agile. And, uh…most of us have decided to quit. I'm sorry, but I really wanted to thank you again before…well, you know."

It was silent, the atmosphere going from sad and contemplative to bordering on awkward.

"Umm...you know, I _really _would've liked you to have thanked me and that's it," I said with a chuckle, "You guys know you can quit anytime you want. No need for that long of a soliloquy."

Hikigaeru—or should I call her Natsuki?—blushed, but gestured at Boar to say whatever he wanted to say.

"Okay," he started uncomfortably, "I'm not quitting, just to let you know. But I'm going on…hiatus, you could say. So I'm not going to be an active ANBU for a while, until I come back from travelling."

I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Travelling? Where?"

He shrugged. "Oh, you know, just going around to all the different countries, and learning different shinobi techniques and such, so that I might be able to understand how to counter an enemy's different technique, if that should happen in the future. So, just to be more knowledgeable."

I nodded. "Good idea," I said, and he relaxed, as if he needed my permission to do this. Ha, thirty-something year olds, asking permission to do something from a twelve year old. I wanted to laugh again at the irony. My life was just full of ironic situations, wasn't it?

Kakashi was, of course, 26, the youngest of our team except for me, so I wondered why he actually _wanted _to quit. I voiced my thoughts, and he straightened from his slouch automatically, hearing the authoritative tone in my voice. I cringed. I really needed to fix that.

"Hmm…the Hokage's been telling me to quit, as have you. Apparently it's ruining me, you both say, although I could say the same for you, Kitsune. You're even more of a kid. You shouldn't have to be a killer. But anyway, I was suggested to become a jounin sensei, and I thought, sure why not try it? So…that's what I'm doing, I guess," he ended lamely, but I could tell he was nervous about it. He had been in ANBU since his teens, and suddenly changing his lifestyle like this…I knew he was slightly worried.

"Don't worry, you'll do great," I grinned at him, even though they wouldn't be able to see behind my cloth mask, and he scoffed. I was pretty sure he appreciated it, though. Maybe.

"Well then, Cat—er, Youko, what're you planning? A jounin sensei, like Kakashi?"

She nodded. "I don't really think I'd be able to continue as ANBU. As you've told me many times, I don't watch my back often enough—and I'm just too old, as Hikigaeru said we all kind of were. I'm nearing 40, you know," she said with an embarrassed laugh, "And continuing to live this harsh lifestyle isn't my kind of thing. I'm going to be an Academy teacher though, not a jounin one."

We chatted about any random thing after that, and there was a loud cheer from Neko, Boar, and Hikigaeru when it came up I was ANBU commander. Kakashi just smirked. As far as I could tell, anyway. He had his mask on everywhere. I'd only seen his face once, and although it was weird to say so, I thought he would be considered one of those "really cute guys," or "super handsome," or whatever. It was probably a family thing though, as he'd said once that the Hatake clan was made up of silver-haired, mask-wearing shinobi; I didn't pry after that. I only wore one underneath my ANBU mask so that if my henge ever dropped my gray-eyes-pale-skin-and-dark-hair look, at least the whisker-like marks wouldn't be visible, even if the blond hair and blue eyes would totally give it away anyway.

The nurses shooed me and Kakashi out a little while later, so I _shunshined_ to the ANBU Headquarters out the window, and received reports from many of the lower ANBU who had returned from missions, going over them and filing them into the correct folders. It was monotonous work, but we were already behind, so I couldn't push it aside any more than I already had.

A knock sounded on the door, and I called, "Enter," in as professional of a voice I could manage. The person who had knocked stepped in. It was another ANBU returning from a mission, with blood coating his hair and clothes, adding to the already-very-metallic smell in the room. Sandaime could only go over the truly important missions from higher-ranking ANBU, after all. The rest would report to me, and I would summarize or give the Hokage the most important pieces of information. He handed me his report, and outlined other small details he missed, then bowed and left after I dismissed him. This occurred two more times, and by then it was 10:30 pm—so I decided to go on my mission. To capture and then kill Mizuki-sensei.

…

I followed him home, having already found he always left the school around 10:45 pm, and pretended to stop at a couple stores while all the time making sure that I knew where he was, and once sensing his chakra signature was getting too far away, I would follow closer again, while all the time still masking my chakra. No matter how careless my opponent was, I could never underestimate them. Kakashi, who had been one of my teachers in the beginning, had told me again and again:

_A careless shinobi is a dead shinobi. Never underestimate your opponents. _

It was a good lesson, which was why, in any task, I never showed swaggering confidence. That was the most careless thing I could ever attempt. No, I knew my skills very well, and I took care to go to the extremes of not having Mizuki notice me following him, and followed him all the way home, where I waited outside for hours in the dark and scrunched up underneath those terribly thorny bushes, waiting for him to fall asleep. At around midnight, I crept up the walls outside the apartment without chakra, using the windowsills and other sections of the building to hoist myself up. I couldn't let him detect my chakra, after all. Again, I couldn't underestimate my opponents.

The window was easily unlocked when I used a little wind to slide underneath the crack and push the lock, and it curled in my palm like a small kitten, waiting for my command. I smoothed on a silencing seal, pushed up the window, and clambered in silently. My gloved hand closed the window just as silently, and I masked my chakra, held my breath, and used chakra to lighten any footsteps I made. As long as my chakra was directed towards myself and not outwards, it wouldn't usually be sensed. With a couple quick hand signs, the man was bound with stone, gagged, blindfolded and tossed over my shoulder. With a _shunshin, _I traveled to the Interrogation Department, where I tossed him in a chair and he struggled off of it and onto the floor, still writhing when I finished my call and Ibiki came strolling in.

"Kitsune-san," he nodded at me, and I nodded back. "Ibiki-san."

Muscled, corded arms reached down and pried away the blindfold, allowing my chuunin instructor to have his vision restored again. His eyes widened.

"You will cooperate with us, or else you will be tortured."

The night was dark, crickets were singing, and the entrance hall of the Torture and Investigation Department building was silent. Mizuki's eyes were wide, and he made a slow, torturous nod that indicated Kitsune could release his stone bonds, as well as the gag. The man's hands and feet unfroze and he leapt to his feet, already running when he propelled himself into a small, unmoving palm. The ANBU commander's mask mocked him, and he snarled, but Ibiki had already wrapped two muscular arms around the instructor's shoulders and pushed the pale man's wrists together, allowing Kitsune to snap heavy cuffs over them. The black metal glinted.

…

"How did you meet Orochimaru? Why did he tell you about this potion that you have been planning to make?"

The young, white-haired man gritted his teeth. "I was on a mission."

"Oh? And what sort of mission were you on?" Ibiki leaned in close while Kitsune hung back, allowed to stay and watch simply because of his high rank.

Mizuki was flat on his back, drips of water having been plunked on his forehead again and again, for hours, until he started screaming and shouting, twitching but unable to move his head. Ibiki had stopped the torture, since Mizuki had been unwilling to speak at first but now appeared to be weaker.

"I…went with my team to retrieve something. I forget what. Orochimaru came up to me because I killed my injured teammate."

Ah, so now he was finally admitting it.

"Orochimaru praised me. He said I was strong. He said I could help him, if I'd like to, and he said I could become stronger. I took the offer. It was a recipe for strength. A strength beyond any normal strength, a strength only for the determined, a strength—"

"That's enough."

"—that would allow me to soar above all my companions and beat them into the ground with ease thatwouldallowmethatwouldhelpmethatwouldmakemestronger, stronger, stronger—"

"Quiet!"

Ibiki allowed a steady drop of water to ping off the delirious Mizuki's forehead again, and he started screaming almost immediately. The torturer stopped. Mizuki also stopped.

He then turned to me, and nodded. "I suppose that we have gathered enough information. We must watch for Orochimaru; he may have only played around with Mizuki, but he must have other plans for Konoha to risk traveling so close and going so far as to contact a Leaf-nin—albeit a, at the time, possibly traitorous Leaf-nin."

He shook his head. "I'll be taking my leave now," he said, and nodded respectfully as he brushed past and out of the torture rooms.

"Mizuki," I murmured, and he glanced at me, eyes slightly clearer now. His delirium from the torturous water—apparently it felt like a sledgehammer was slamming into your head if it continued for too long—was starting to fade, and a guarded look again came up as he salvaged what pride he could find, staring into my eyes as best as possible, given I was wearing an ANBU mask.

I released my henge, took off my porcelain _and_ cloth mask, and in those moments, he found out Uzumaki Naruto's true identity. Or maybe the other way around; he found the new ANBU commander's true identity. Either way, he was surprised to say the least, and he stared, mouth open.

A kunai whipped across the tender flesh of his throat, and sickly red liquid spurted out. "How…how could _you _ever…"

He choked, and then the last breath he would ever take left his throat in a whisper. He was dead. I wiped my kunai on his clothing, and then called for a lower-ranking shinobi with a convenient little button at the front of the door. Mission complete.

…

**Yes. Mission accomplished. I have stopped the chapter at a mostly-kind-of-not-really suspenseful point in the story. This is a **_**way **_**longer chapter than usual, and I hope it won't be like that in the future. Otherwise, it'll take me **_**weeks **_**to update. **

**Thanks for reading, and please review! No flames. **

**~paracuties**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi. I'm back. Hope I didn't keep you guys waiting too long. On a brighter note, thank you to everybody who's reviewed! It means a lot—and I actually mean that. I love reading them. Makes me feel strangely giddy. **

**This chapter's kind of short and probably slightly boring, since it's kind of an in-between sort of thing. There's not too much action, and the bit of action in there isn't really very well-written. I can't write action scenes, you see. I like to say I'm improving though. **

**So. Thank you to all who followed and favorited, and special thanks to reviewers! You guys are awesome!**

**Enjoy.**

**4/21/14 Update: I realized I needed to change something. So I'm re-uploading it and changing the ANBU commander's cause of death because only now did I figure out where I'm going with this whole story. **

…

I yawned. Five am. After quickly taking a shower and throwing on my ANBU outfit, I ate some slightly burnt eggs, drank two cups of milk, and settled into my seat in Headquarters. After filing away a bunch of junk—er, reports—on my desk, I received information on the previous commander's death. His heart had been destroyed by a medical technique called the chakra scalpel. How had _that_ been possible? I had them find out where he had been the previous night, who had come into contact with him anytime and day, all the while suspiciously wondering if one of them, or any of the ANBU for that matter, could be the culprit. I was pretty sure they were wondering the same about me—if they weren't guilty. I rested my cheek on my hand and sighed. This was pretty much what I had expected; a bunch of busywork and paperwork waiting for me day after day.

The routine of receiving and filing away mission reports ate away at me until I was dying of boredom at 7:20, so much so that I quickly hurried to school twenty five minutes beforehand.

Iruka looked at me strangely as I walked in, and I looked down at what I was wearing. No, I had not accidentally walked in with only my ANBU clothing. No, my tattoo was not visible. It had been altered, too, to allow me to call ANBU at my whim—responsibly, of course—so it was even more prominent, but that wasn't it. He was probably wondering why I was so early _again, _as did Sasuke and Shino. Even Sakura, the pink-haired little fangirl, wasn't here yet.

I smiled cheekily at him, dissipating his worries and any suspicions about anything, then sat next to Sasuke, obnoxiously chattering loudly about ramen, then the spar we had yesterday, and then about the upcoming graduation exam. He looked supremely bored and annoyed and pained at the same time that I took it as a sign of improvement. At least he was showing some emotion…

Class started, and the rest of the week whirled by until it was Tuesday, the day of our graduation exams.

The day started out slightly gray and overcast, but I sucked out the water from the clouds into a huge sphere of rain and poured it into the ground, doing that until the clouds lightened a little, not as full of water anymore. Ha. There. I just temporarily beat nature, even though there was now a small lake randomly in the middle of the forest.

I triumphantly sauntered to the Academy, putting up the boisterous and boastful façade until it was my turn. I knew Sasuke would graduate this year—I had been studying his skills year after year, and I knew he was good enough to pass by now—so I had no qualms about finally passing the exam. I didn't have to pretend to fail myself anymore! Yes!

Without Mizuki there to help, Iruka had his hands full, and didn't pay much attention to the fact that with little to no effort I passed the written exam, along with the taijutsu spars and ninjutsu demonstrations; just the basic ones. Those that thought they may end up with too-low scores to pass could also show Iruka their genjutsu skills if they had any, which could possibly earn them points if the genjutsu was stable and working, and maybe allow them to pass—as long as the rest of their skills weren't _too _terrible, of course. We all, to the relief of many, passed, and my classmates brandished their new hitai-ates proudly, so I imitated their behavior. Sasuke appeared bored, as if he was expecting to pass—which I suppose he was, but couldn't the guy at least smile? I decided to make him, after shoving through all the fangirls crowding around him.

"Hey, Sasuke! Ha, see? I passed! You said I wouldn't, and called me a dobe, but I'm not, and I passed. So there!" I tapped my shiny hitai-ate proudly. I'd be returning it to the Hokage later, seeing as how I already had one—since I was five, I might add—but for now, this was the one I had earned with my identity of simple little Uzumaki Naruto, so I'd be wearing it.

"Hn."

"What, you aren't happy you passed? You'd rather have failed?"

He gave me a sideways look that seemed to say, Of course not, dobe, what are you thinking? The answer he gave wasn't that, though.

"Hn."

"Say something other than 'hn' or I'm going to keep bothering you!"

"Shut up, dobe."

"!"

He smirked. I left in a huff, inwardly smiling. I was getting really good at this.

After that, I chatted a little with Kiba, Chouji, and Shikamaru, and the day ended with my usual visit to the office, filing reports and making sure that there wasn't anything weird any of the ANBU had found. My dinner consisted of three large slices of bread and a quarter of a jar of peanut butter, along with a couple tomatoes to balance it all out, and then I went to rest. Tomorrow we'd be assigned our genin teams, and take the test our sensei assigned us. I wondered who my sensei would be…

...

"Good morning, everyone," Iruka said happily, looking at all of us with pride. I think he gave me an especially big smile. I grinned back.

"Good morning, Iruka-sensei," everybody chorused. Many of them had wanted to know what had happened to Mizuki-sensei, as we usually said, "Good morning, Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei," but Iruka had just said Mizuki had caught a really bad sickness, and wouldn't be back for the rest of the school year. We'd be gone after that, so there was no need to worry about any of us finding out it was a lie.

…Well, except for me of course, since I had been the one to personally kill him, but I had also jumped in when everybody asked questions, so it wasn't like I was suspicious. And besides, it was my job! My duty to Konoha to kill him!

Mizuki had not been taken to the jail we often put traitorous shinobi and kunoichi into—they simply wasted Konoha's time and resources and had about 0.01% chance of repenting. Most of them simply sat and seethed in anger, plotting out Konoha's demise while rotting away in jail. It wasn't worth it to keep any traitors around. After realizing my mind was drifting again, I yanked my attention back to Iruka-sensei.

"The teams will be made up of three people, based on your strengths and weaknesses. So, Team 1 will be…"

"Then, Team 7 will consist of Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke."

"YEESSS!" Sakura screeched, then jabbed a finger in the direction of Yamanaka Ino and said smugly, "Ha! Take that, Ino!"

I pretended to groan and glare at Sasuke. Inside though, I was practically screaming with happiness. Well, with as much happiness that you can feel when you think you mission is going to get easier. As Haruno and Yamanaka competed for dominance in their screaming match, I wondered how I could've ever pretended to have a crush on Sakura for as long as I did. I had decided, when I first entered the Academy, to pretend I had a crush on someone just to seem all the more like a little kid, and I had continued my "crush" on Sakura all the way until the middle of last year, when enough was enough. Seriously. It was way too tiring trying to act like you liked someone and purposely humiliating yourself to continue your act—and then have said someone smack you on the head and make lovey-dovey eyes at the rookie of the year. Uchiha, of course.

Iruka tore Ino and Sakura apart, and they sat down with a huff, looking contrite and meekly nodding their heads after Iruka gave a short lecture on respect. He continued reading the list.

"Team 8 will consist of Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata."

The only complaint was from Kiba, who pretty much boasted or complained his way through life, I had figured. He was, otherwise, a good guy though. I realized they were a tracking team.

"Last team, Team 10, will consist of Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji, led by Asuma-sensei."

Iruka paused. "Oh, right, Team 8's sensei will be led by Yuuhi Kurenai; Team 7 will be led by Kakashi-sensei, Team 6…"

Huh. Kakashi-sensei. Why did that sound—_oh_. _Ohhh_. Oh, man. Well. Did not expect that. I managed to keep my composure though, and asked eagerly, "Who's that? What does he look like? Is he super cool and awesome, or weird and—"

"Naruto, keep your mouth shut for just a moment."

I sat down, acting annoyed, while inside I was threatening my snickering classmates that I would kill them if they laughed at me again. Not literally, of course. God knows it could be quite literal, quite easily.

He sighed. "You'll see once he gets here, Naruto; he can introduce himself then."

I harrumphed, crossed my arms, and stuck my tongue out at him. God, this was so fun. Too bad the other, trained and professional ANBU side of me felt completely bored and annoyed at having to play such a role.

Yuuhi Kurenai and Sarutobi Asuma—I had talked to that guy once, seeing as how he was the Hokage's son and all, and man, did he get sullen and childish when around his father—stepped into the classroom, calling out their team numbers and having their respective students follow them out. I knew Kakashi was going to be hours late, so I decided to pull out a couple of reports I had stuffed into my backpack. They were written in code, so it wouldn't be too much trouble if Sasuke or Sakura got curious. I read through them, decoding it quickly, then put them in specific folders I had set up so I could quickly put them into the right file at my office. Sasuke pretended to be wandering around the room, but I noticed his discreet glances at my papers as he passed behind me, and I finally turned around, sighed, and asked him, "You need something?"

He gave me a startled glance, and then turned away.

"Hn."

Sakura came up too, not even bothering to pretend she wasn't looking at them, and read, "The three big birds flew east, while the four smaller birds flew southeast, then curved towards east and met at their nests. They all greeted each other happily, and—"

She stopped. "What the heck are you doing, Naruto? Why are you reading some weird paper on birds?"

Even Uchiha looked confused, so I sighed inwardly, glad they hadn't caught on. If they did, then…well, first of all, that meant they were kind of talented, and second of all, there'd be a lot of quick, valid excuses thought up on the fly. Which I really didn't feel up to doing.

The minutes ticked by, and I finished with the reports. After looking out the door and into the hallway multiple times—earning a reproach from Haruno—an idea suddenly popped into my head.

I lugged a stool over, then stood on top of it and wedged a blackboard eraser between the slidable door and the doorframe.

"Wait a second, Naruto. What are you doing?"

I cackled evilly.

Sakura scowled at me.

"Hey!"

"It'll be his fault because he's late," I admonished her, hopping off the stool.

"You're really asking for it," Sakura warned me. Sasuke told me haughtily that a jounin wouldn't fall prey to such a simple prank, and Sakura immediately agreed, while simultaneously calling me an idiot. I could tell she wanted to join in though; by the way she sometimes stood on tiptoe and peered out the sliver of open doorway, glancing at the eraser with a light in her eyes, her fingers curling in excitement. What a…well, to simply put it, a ditz. She didn't even say what she wanted to say or do because she was afraid that would make a boy, a mere _classmate_, like her less. I scoffed.

Thankfully, the door decided to slide open at that time, and I watched, fascinated, as Hatake Kakashi, the Copy Ninja and the son of the White Fang, really did "fall prey to such a simple prank." The blackboard eraser fell without the door stabilizing it, and with a clunk, dropped on Kakashi's head. Dust flew into the air, and he paused, one foot inside the classroom. I burst out laughing, grinning at him. He had his usual "mysterious" air about him, but I had gotten used to reading him, and he was definitely annoyed. Sakura quickly tried apologizing, putting all the blame on me, but I noticed a twinkle of satisfaction in her eyes. I noticed Sasuke staring at him with narrowed eyes, and I could tell he doubted the authenticity of Kakashi's skill. Kakashi stared at the blackboard eraser in his hand, then put his other hand on his chin and seemed to be thinking very deeply.

"Hmm, how do I put this?"

Then, he stared at us, and said, "My first impression of you three…well, I hate you."

Way to be blunt, Kakashi.

"Meet me on the roof of the school building, and we'll introduce ourselves."

…

We sat on the steps, Kakashi facing us while leaning on the railing. He had us introduce ourselves, and we did, I making myself seem like a delusional, ramen-loving kid, Sakura making it obvious she lived only for Sasuke as a fangirl, and Sasuke establishing his arrogance and vengeance. Man, that really needed to be worked on.

By the end of it, all we had learned from Kakashi was his name, as he said, "Me? My name's Kakashi Hatake. I don't feel like telling you guys about my likes and dislikes. I've never really thought about my dream future…As for my hobbies, I have many."

Sakura had said with a very disgruntled face, "In the end, isn't all we know about him his name?"

Unfortunately, his turn was over, so we had given basic summaries of ourselves, as I had stated earlier. After that little part, he told us we would be receiving a mission tomorrow. I had acted very eager and anticipatory, but after he revealed it was a survival exercise, Sakura and I frowned, confused. At least, she was. And I'm sure that the Uchiha was too, deep down. Very, very deep down, but there, nonetheless.

"Of the 27 graduates…only nine will become actual genin shinobi. The remaining eighteen will be sent back to the Academy. In other words, this is a survival exercise with a failure rate of 66% or higher!"

Well, after that bomb was dropped, there was a stunned, shocked silence, and he told us, "We meet at five in the morning.

"Well, you're dismissed! Oh…and you'd best skip breakfast. You'll throw up otherwise."

…

**Not the best ending. But I didn't want to add more to it, or else it'd add, like, eight more word doc pages. And I really didn't want to drag a chapter out that long. **

**Please review! I'd like some constructive criticism! (I sincerely hope you all realize that I'd be happy if there were no flames.)**

**Update: Oh, and you might've noticed I edited and revised it a bit this time around. A cookie to all who actually went back and read through the entire chapter again. **

**~paracuties**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey, I'm back! Yes, the update took me a while to upload. But you may have noticed that I edited chapter three a bit. All I changed was the ANBU commander's death and did a little editing and revising; you should at least check the change in cause of death since that's going to be important later on. Slightly. **

**Huge thank you to reviewers, favoriters, and followers. You guys are multiplying! I'm so happy! XD And also, if I didn't respond to your review by way of a PM, I'm sorry about that! Whenever I first upload the latest chapter, my inbox, when reviews come all in a row, will for some reason group them together in one email. I didn't understand the "(5)" next to the topic name at first, but then, well. I noticed them when I was lazily scrolling around. I still may have missed some, though, so, again, sorry!**

**Disclaimer (you may notice I do these very sporadically and randomly): I do not own Naruto. Not the anime, the manga, the games, nor the posters and whatnot that people can actually legally own of Naruto…**

**Enjoy reading!**

…

Sakura shouted at me as I slowly ambled over to them at around 9:30 a.m.

"What are you doing, coming so late?! And why isn't Kakashi-sensei here?"

I made a face. "How would I know that? And anyway, I thought that if he was hours late yesterday, he'd be super late today too, so I took my time eating breakfast."

She spluttered. Sasuke also looked at me, frowning as he wondered why I had decided to throw up later on.

"Haha, you guys are _so_ stupid. I mean, who doesn't eat when they're preparing for a mission? We'll need our energy later on."

They both paused, looking slightly embarrassed—Sakura—or annoyed they hadn't realized that—Sasuke.

I pulled out a scroll from my scroll pouch, checked if it was the right one—we couldn't have a bunch of shiny, deadly weapons only reserved for jounin or ANBU suddenly pop out—and bit my thumb, spreading a thin trail of blood on the inked paper and allowing fresh-baked loaves of bread, some rice and bean buns, and assorted fruit appear out of the smoke. They stared at it hungrily.

"Go ahead and eat, I seriously think you should," I offered graciously, biting into a pear myself.

They both ate their breakfast after that, and I had just cleaned up everything when Kakashi appeared.

"Hey, guys. Good morning."

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura and I screamed at him, our fingers pointing furiously at our sensei.

"Well, a black cat crossed my path, you see," he offered, and then cleared his throat when met with blank stares and you've-got-to-be-kidding-me looks.

He paused. "Is that breakfast I smell on your breaths?"

"Uh..."

"Hmph." He turned his nose up dramatically. "Fine. See if I care when you throw all that food up later. How attractive _that_ will be..."

Sakura had a pinched look on her face.

Kakashi explained the test, setting the timer for 12:00, and saying our objective was to attain the two bells he was currently holding, which he tied onto his belt. If we couldn't get the bells by then, he'd tie us to three wooden logs—he pointed at them—and eat our lunch happily right in front of us. Only then did the other two realize that was why he had had us not eat breakfast…

"But wait a second. Why are there only two bells?"

Sakura's sharp mind caught onto that right away, so with a gleeful expression—at least, as gleeful as he could look with only a three-square inch area of his face visible—he told us at the most, only one person would be tied to the log, and two people would pass. That person unfortunately tied to the log would be sent back to the Academy. However, if we were still unable to snatch a bell from him by noon, then all three of us would fail.

So he was trying to split us up…this was probably about teamwork. He had drilled into my head the first time we met, which was when I was six and starting my career as a shinobi:

_Those who break the rules and regulations are regarded as trash, but those that abandon their comrades instead are even worse than trash. _

It was stuck in my head even years later, and I had integrated good teamwork into my team of ANBU as a result. Kakashi had been quite happy with me. I smirked. I knew his objective; now all I had to do was get Sakura and Sasuke to work with me. Kakashi attached the two bells back on.

"You can use your weapons. You won't be able to take the bells unless you come with the intent to kill me."

"But that's dangerous, sensei!" Sakura protested, looking apprehensive.

I agreed, chuckling to cover up my "nervousness", and said, "Yeah, you couldn't even evade a chalkboard eraser!"

"In the shinobi world, those who aren't skilled enough tend to complain more. Well, I'll just ignore the loser…," Kakashi said in a bored tone, effectively drawing out the "three" of us.

"Begin when I give you the signal."

He had barely finished his sentence when I rushed forward, a kunai spinning on my finger and then clenched in my fist as I stabbed at him messily head-on. I needed to establish my recklessness and never-thinking-before-doing-ness as Naruto. Obviously, Kakashi just grabbed my wrist, set a hand on the back of my head, and yanked the sharp away from him and towards my own bare neck from behind, startling my other two teammates.

I was released a moment later, and I backed up, grinning inwardly. He just had to show off.

A little speech later, "Ready…start!"

…

My stupidity established from the start, I allowed Kakashi to catch me in trap after trap, attempting again and again to face off with him without hiding and following the basic shinobi rules. I could see the how-did-this-guy-even-pass look in his eyes clearly even from here, forty feet away. I finally decided to duck into the bushes, and allowed him to evaluate Sasuke's skills. Both of us appraised his talent with fire jutsu, and I nodded in acknowledgement at his speed. Eventually, Sasuke was buried in the ground up to his neck, and Sakura was caught in Kakashi's genjutsu. I released them both, all of us crouching behind bushes in a small clearing and the two of them waiting for me to say something. Since I had freed them from their traps, there was an obvious expectation that I wanted something.

"What are you doing, dobe?"

I shushed him. "I think we should all work together to get the bells from him. Three genin working together should be able to defeat a jounin, right?"

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"There's only two bells, so after you take one, who'll get the other bell? Sakura, or me?"

I shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it; you already know you can't defeat him by yourself. So we have to work together to get the bells in the first place."

They thought for a while, and then both of them nodded slowly. I cleared my throat.

"So, what we're going to do is, Sakura, you're going to cast a genjutsu on him. You're good at those, right?"

She nodded, blushing slightly at the indirect compliment, and I turned to Sasuke.

"I can distract him with my Kage Bunshin and you can combat him with fire jutsu so Sakura can grab the bells while he's distracted with both of us. That's what the genjutsu is for: so he won't notice you coming for the bells."

They both nodded automatically, but then Sasuke frowned, wondering why he had responded so easily to that authoritative tone from Naruto, of all people, and muttered, "Who went and made you leader?"

He sped off after that though, not allowing me to reply and having me assume he was putting the plan in motion. I shrugged, then reminded Sakura to settle the genjutsu on Kakashi after we had distracted him, and created my trustworthy Kage Bunshin—so, yeah, I shouldn't know the technique as a genin, but he could assume I'd learned it from the Sandaime—and if he didn't, and instead asked the Hokage about it, the Hokage could still spin up some tale of teaching the technique to me anyway.

My teammates charged forward while I waited in the bushes. If I had to, I'd cast a quick, hard genjutsu and grab the bells myself. Then I'd cast a genjutsu on everyone else so they would think Sakura grabbed the bells from Kakashi, when I really just handed it to her. No one would know, and then Kakashi would have to pass us because we had worked together to the best of our abilities and even obtained our goal. That was an awesometerrible plan.

My clones disoriented him, "accidentally" happening to bend down or trip really fast when he tried to stab them, which allowed the kunai to pass over them and then happening to simply jump all over the place and not receive a single hit from Kakashi. Sasuke blew his fireballs, which served to distract Kakashi further since he couldn't burrow under the ground when my clones were hanging onto him, and he had to dodge, unable to get a good chance to _Kawarimi_. I snickered. The light genjutsu had set in place by now, and Sakura darted forward, her hand outstretched. She yanked on the two bells…and they disappeared with a poof, along with Kakashi, leaving my clones to tumble all over each other.

I sighed, dispelled them, and the three of us grouped together in the bushes again.

"Good job, Sakura, you were still able to grab the bells," I tried to encourage the girl, but she frowned and shook her head.

"I didn't even do anything! All I did was make a crappy genjutsu on a clone."

Sasuke bit out, "Come on, we don't have the time for this. Let's think of another plan."

I nodded with approval. Sasuke was finally referring to the three of us as a group. This time, our plan was to have Sakura set up an illusion of all three of us attacking. Meanwhile, inside the genjutsu, "I" would grab hold of him and Kakashi would stand still, allowing Sasuke and my clone charge him in real life and the actual me turned into a senbon needle. Hopefully, Kakashi wouldn't be able to differentiate between the genjutsu me's and the real clone me's. At least for a second.

Sasuke would maneuver the senbon needle—me—onto Kakashi's clothing, and I'd burst into existence and hopefully not have to tear a large hole in Kakashi's flak jacket—which the needle would be stuck into—while doing this. It usually didn't work that way…and after bursting into existence, I'd grab the bells and make a run for it. That was the most basic-but-hopefully-still-functional plan I could come up with, at least. We could only hope for it to work.

The genjutsu set in heavily. I and Sasuke rushed in together, as Sasuke was holding me in senbon needle form. My clones and the people Sakura created from her genjutsu were currently rushing him from behind, in front, left, right, and most of all, above, with some of them henged into Sasuke or Sakura, and others _henged_ into animals. That could serve to confuse Kakashi for a little longer, and cause him to think my clones _henged_ into animals were part of the genjutsu. Sasuke darted forward, sprinting around Kakashi and then jumping up and sailing over the man, throwing me still in needle form onto Kakashi and latching me in the middle of his back. I waited a moment, waiting until he was mostly still to poof into existence, and immediately reached for the bells. I could see the victory, right in front of my eyes—but I could also sense Kakashi realizing this and ready to turn. In a burst of unnatural speed for a genin, I yanked the two silver bells off his belt, the metal cool in my clenched palm as I escaped into the surrounding forest.

Hopefully, he wouldn't realize that trip-up.

…Yeah, right. He'd definitely be questioning me later. Before I could start formulating any excuses in my head, Sakura ambushed me, jumping in front of me and asking me excitedly if I had gotten the bells. I confirmed it, smiling widely, while inside I was still worried about the situation with Kakashi. Sasuke also demanded to see the bells, for once actually showing intense emotion, and I dangled them in front of his eyes. He paused, realizing, yet again, that there were only two.

"Well? Who's going to be sent back to the Academy?"

A foreign voice appeared from behind all of us. I calmly ripped apart the two bells and was about to hand them to Sasuke and Sakura when Sakura jumped forward, grabbing one and shoving it into Sasuke's hand.

"Sensei, it'll be me. Because I didn't do much. All I did was cast genjutsu, while Sasuke and Naruto did all the work."

Sasuke stared at her openly, then shook his head and placed the bell into her open palm he was gripping.

"No, I actually did the least. All I did was throw Naruto in senbon needle form, and that was all that was needed for the plan."

"Guys, guys, seriously, I'm okay with being sent back to the Academy. Sasuke, don't you have a goal? And Sakura, you wouldn't want to take an entire year of the Academy again, would you? You both have the bells, and I'll fail. I'll just find another way to pass."

Kakashi laughed. A small chuckle at first, then all out guffawing at the end.

"You all…PASS!"

"W-what?"

"Why?"

"You just said only two of us would pass!"

He giggled some more, before gathering himself and explaining.

"This was a test to see if you would work together instead of selfishly doing things for yourself. In the shinobi world, you might have to work with allies you don't like—but you still have to work together, and be good at it to defeat the enemy. You all did wonderful; I'm surprised that you even thought of doing this. I was planning to, if you guys failed at this, tie one person to the log and have the other two eat their lunches, explicitly telling you guys weren't allowed to share your food. Of course, the point of that would be to get you guys to work as a team, even with terrible consequences. You three however…well, I guess you three are different."

He smiled. I cheered loudly, Sakura grinned happily, and even Sasuke smiled.

…

It had been relaxing to mess around with D rank missions for a while; catching Tora the cat reminded me of the times when I was four and trying to catch Miya the cat, and Sasuke and I had established some kind of rivalry between us—we constantly worked to get better than the other.

Our first conversation went something like this:

"Stop! Where do you even get that energy?!"

Sasuke was panting and demanding for a moment of rest, but I was still thrumming with energy as we sparred and Kakashi pushed Sakura to complete difficult, muscle-building exercises.

I shrugged.

"I don't know how your parents even deal—"

He stopped after I purposely stiffened. I had been trained to have no reaction, and after automatically stopping myself from reacting, I had to relax and allow myself to react normally.

The dark-haired boy didn't apologize, but I could tell he felt slightly guilty for saying that. We started up the spar and he skidded back again, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

I paused, then said, "How do you know all these techniques?"

His mouth flattened into a straight line. At first I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but then as our kunai shook against the other and we dropped our hands, he said quietly, "My clan. All the members of my clan taught me the shinobi arts. I have still retained them."

There was pride in that last sentence, and I ventured, "I have bad form, don't I?"

He scoffed.

"Hey, come on, emo Sasuke, teach me!"

He raised an eyebrow at that, and I shrugged. "Kakashi-sensei's definitely not helping."

I suppose he sympathized with that, as he shrugged and said, "Before Kakashi gets here, then. I'm not going to make extra time to teach a dobe like you."

I smirked viciously. "Oh, yeah? You still think I'm a dobe?! Then take this!"

I pounced at him, and he met the challenge. The team training ended after another couple of minutes, and we were dismissed, while I returned to my apartment and traveled out in a different identity, ready for a much higher-level mission.

However, the Hokage was now requesting me to request for a C rank as Uzumaki Naruto. Loudly. Brashly. With as much whining as possible. Seriously? I nodded though, because a respectful shinobi's duty was to take on any mission without any complaint. It wouldn't do to disrespect the Hokage. After bowing and being dismissed, I _shunshined_ away, returning to my apartment to change into a pair of cleaner, less bloody pair of clothes and topping it over with the regular orange jumpsuit.

Before dawn arrived, long before going to meet my team, I visited my office to work out something with the ANBU. The Hokage had found a couple of decent, recently-promoted jounin, and he was recommending them to take the tests to get into ANBU. The exercises were always different, but recently I had wanted to try something else—or at least add a new section to it. Some of the ex-Konoha ANBU usually proctored these tests, so I'd have to inform them of my idea. The whole process took hours, with papers filled with designs and information spread all over the table by the time I was finished. I yawned, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes. The ex-ANBU frowned. Probably didn't approve of me yawning, since I was the commander. Well, too bad. People yawned. Get over it, lady. She left, probably to inform the other ex-ANBU helping, and I'd come back from the mission just a couple of days before the tests began. At least, if it all went according to plan.

…

"Naruto! What took you so long?! Even Kakashi-sensei arrived on time today!" I winced at the loud, shrill sound, my headache only worsening from this.

"Calm down, Sakura, I'm here, aren't I? So there's no need to yell at me," I mumbled. Well, wasn't that a little out of character.

"Anyway! Are we getting another mission today? Come on, let's go!" I raced off towards the mission building, and they followed at a calmer pace. We arrived in the missions building, me striding in and earning a sharp, piercing gaze from the Hokage. I nodded subtly.

"Let's see…," the Hokage pretended to scan the list of D-rank missions.

"Oh! How about going to babysit the—"

"Aw, come on, Jiji! I don't want another D-rank mission!"

"Naruto! You idiot, don't you know that a genin like you can _only_ do D-rank missions?!" Iruka was the one who shouted this.

"Naruto-kun. There are different requests every day, ranging from babysitting to assassinations. They are placed into four different categories, based on their difficulty. A, B, C—"

I tuned the Hokage out, faced the other wall, and started pretending to plan my daily ramen meals. I rarely ate them all that much now, but when I did, they were pretty enjoyable. Ichiraku's was, of course, the best.

"Naruto! Are you even paying attention?!"

I complained some more, Jiji argued some more, and then:

"Fine."

Sakura and Sasuke looked up, surprised that I had won the ridiculous argument.

"You will be bodyguards for someone."

I excitedly asked who it was, and he called someone in. The man stumbled in, gulping down sake. A little drunk, but still stable enough to walk around normally.

"Hmph. Who's the little runt?"

Okay, so, obviously it was me. Sasuke and Sakura were taller. Kind of sucked, but at least my size meant I had more speed. I pretended to not understand though, laughing and asking who it was. My two teammates stepped closer, making it obvious I was shorter. I exploded, and Kakashi had to restrain me from attacking our client.

Well, mission complete. We had secured a C-rank mission.

…

**The ending's strangely similar to another chapter's ending. Eh. Whatevs, I can't bring myself to care right now. **

**I was going to end it at the end of the bell test, but then realized that'd be too short. So, hope you enjoyed the extra tidbit.**

**It's late, I haven't started my homework yet, and I've been getting five to six hours each night with no naps allowed in the afternoon, the naps part courtesy of my fanatical mother. You guys better appreciate this. **

**Review, please! (But no flames. Obviously.)**

**~paracuties**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello, my wonderful, wonderful readers…so, um. I know it seems I kind of forgot about this story here, but I can assure you I did not. I was thinking about it quite often, actually. I was planning to post the new chapter after Memorial Day weekend, but then…a lot of stuff came up. Like, a **_**lot. **_**I know, these are excuses. Sorry, but better late than never, right? **

**And thank you, thank you, thank you, to all reviewers, favoriters, and followers! Although…what I'm finding strange is that some of you only favorite the story. I'm grateful that I'm gaining favorites, but…what I'm hoping for is that you'll continue reading my story and, you know, following it…**

**Ah, well. I suppose this A/N is getting long enough. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. The manga would NOT be dragging out this long if I did. **

…

I waited in the trees, concealing my chakra as usual, and realized there were already two enemies waiting on the opposite side of the road, hiding in the forest like I was. As my clone, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi strolled out of the missions building, I watched my clone subtly glance around suspiciously before creating another clone. That new copy of me immediately dispelled, sending me the previous information. Ah, so Kakashi had been informed that an ANBU would be following along, as somehow, the Hokage had discovered this mission was not a mere C-rank. But, given the situation in Wave Country, he pretended not to know, opting to instead have my team take the risky mission—and that way, an ANBU and an ex-ANBU would be able to deal with any problems that arose on this actually A-ranked mission.

My clone made a big fuss about being outside of the village for the first time, although, as an ANBU, I had already gone out of the village to perform hundreds of S-ranked missions over the years. As the day wore on and we traveled at a more sedate pace, I noticed the two enemy-nin were hiding themselves in a puddle. My team trekked by, and Kakashi substituted himself at the last second when the two of them swung large, clunky chains around him. _Shhhhhrrk—_

It appeared to have sliced him into bits.

The team screamed, and then they headed for my clone, which would most likely poof into nonexistence if harmed at all. My clone backed up, pushing away Tazuna and Sakura and unfortunately having the chain pass through it since there was no room to move out of the way. Sasuke handled the two chains, throwing a shuriken and kunai and effectively trapping the chains onto a tree. Nice.

Sakura started at the clone disappearing, but fortunately my clone had made another clone which had then gone to hide in the forest until its creator disappeared. It then jumped in, presumably as the real Naruto, darting behind the enemy-nin rushing at Sakura who was trying to protect Tazuna. Before it reached them though, Kakashi suddenly appeared, wrapping both muscular arms around their necks and squeezing, effectively cutting off their air supply. They choked, then fell unconscious for a moment, which gave him all the time he needed to chain them to a tree.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura squealed, beyond relieved that he was alive. My clone, "stunned", turned to look at the apparent remains of Kakashi, and "realized" it was just a couple of pieces of wood. Everything was back to normal, with my clone and Sasuke respecting each other's ability to react in a battle. Kakashi praised all three of us for being able to react so quickly, and the journey continued, with Sasuke stealing glances at my clone with suspicion.

…

Sasuke couldn't believe that Naruto was suddenly, out of the blue, oh-so-great at creating plans, planning out such elaborate battles on the fly—at least for a fresh-out-of-the-Academy genin—such as the time during Kakashi-sensei's test, and then now, when he had replaced himself with a clone in order to make the enemy attack the clone and then be ambushed by the real one. When had the Naruto in the Academy ever been able to think like that? Something was off here, and he could tell Kakashi thought so too.

Meanwhile, Kakashi, although he assumed Naruto to just be hiding a bit of talent for thinking through pretty decent plans behind a mask of stupidity, didn't think that a graduated Academy student would have been able to move with that speed during his test. He hadn't asked the boy himself about it, but was suspicious of the fact that Naruto had been able to grab the bells so quickly and easily. Far too quickly, for a genin. No genin had that kind of speed, maybe not even chuunin. It strangely reminded him of his ex-ANBU captain, for some reason. His captain liked to trick his opponents, making them think he was slow and allowing them to get very, very close, before suddenly, with a tremendous burst of speed, slit their throat before their opponents could even blink. Huh. Strange that they acted a little similar…he kept his mind from going down a different, scarier route.

While on the boat that silently skimmed the water towards Wave Country, Kakashi decided it was time. Time to question Tazuna, that is, about the recent battle and the motives behind it. Yes, he knew the situation. Yes, he knew the ANBU that had been following them had probably already arrived at Wave Country and was waiting for Team Seven to arrive, ready to fight off any enemy shinobi that would prove too much for him. He had slacked off lately, and his muscles had become accustomed to the calmer, less-in-danger environment, which would not bode well with trying to defeat the enemy shinobi. However, he wanted the client to admit it, just to prove to him that he was protecting a good man, an honest person that would care about the lives of his protectors.

At least, his students would learn of the situation, and hopefully Naruto would not immediately jump into a fight. Even if his bright, cheerful student was actually quite smart underneath the ridiculous orange, against an S-ranked shinobi, the newly-made genin wouldn't stand a chance. Hopefully, they'd run, their client their first priority, and hopefully, they'd leave him and the supposed-to-be hidden ANBU to deal with whoever would attack them.

"Tazuna-sama. I would like to ask you a question before we reach the land. Just who are the people attacking you, and what for? If you don't answer us, this mission may end after we dock."

Kakashi had softly told Tazuna of all the mistakes and wrong information, and warned him that it wouldn't do to lie. Tazuna had been quite sorry, and now Kakashi was waiting for the old bridge builder to give his side of the story.

Everybody was paying attention now, and with the surrounding mist, it gave a secretive feeling, finally urging the old man to speak.

"It appears I have no choice but to tell you," he sighed, and continued in his gravelly voice, looking up at the shinobi watching him intently.

"Frankly, I'd like you to listen. Just as you said, this may be beyond the scope of your mission. To be honest, I am being targeted by a terrifying man."

"A terrifying man?" Kakashi questioned, giving a doubtful tone to his voice. "Who?"

"You guys have probably heard at least his name before. A shipping magnate by the name of Gatou."

"What? Gatou? Gatou of the Gatou Company? One of the world's richest men?" Kakashi's eyes widened dramatically.

"Who? What?" Naruto asked, inserting excitement into his voice.

"Hm. On the surface, he's the chief executive of a shipping company…But underneath, he is into drug-trafficking and deals in contraband using gangs and ninjas. Moreover, he runs a despicable business, ruthlessly taking over nations and enterprises.

"It was about a year ago, when that man set his eyes on the Land of the Waves. He used his wealth and violence to enter this country, and before anyone knew it, he had taken complete control of the island maritime transportation and shipping."

His explanation of Gatou continued, describing him as a terrible, ruthless man, using anything at his disposable and easily pushing around small countries like the Land of the Waves. There was no heart to this man, only doing things for his own benefit and controlling everything and everybody. The only thing in his way was the under-construction bridge, spanning from Land of the Waves to Fire Country. If the bridge was finished, the predicament of Wave Country would be known, the information would be spread, and Fire Country would with no qualms kick out Gatou.

Team 7 started muttering among themselves, but Kakashi asked Tazuna straight-out why they had not given that information in the first place. Tazuna said with defeat that they had no money, not even the feudal lord. He attempted to blackmail them by getting their pity for his family, failing terribly, before Kakashi relented. He bent his head down, scratching his hitai-ate.

"Well…I guess we have no choice."

The person rowing the boat suddenly and quietly announced they were arriving, stating they didn't seem to have been noticed yet. Tazuna thanked him as they stepped onto the dock, and the man cranked up the motor and went off.

"Get me home safely now!" the old man announced, and they trudged off in the direction of his house, Tazuna guiding them. Kakashi shook his head morbidly. Next time, it wouldn't be chuunin, but elite-level jounin attacking. He could only hope that the ANBU would be able to handle the situation if worst came to worst. Kakashi couldn't sense the ANBU's chakra signature anywhere, but he or she was most likely hiding it. It yet again reminded him of Kitsune, his team captain and now the ANBU commander. The grey-eyed, 12 year old boy, whose true identity he didn't even know, was very talented.

…

Naruto the clone continued acting stupid. He pretended to be angry that Sasuke was as good as him in a battle, and wanted to prove he was better. He randomly shot a kunai, which was actually just a small piece of gauze he transformed, into the bushes, looking this way and that wildly.

"Oh, that was just a mouse," he said languidly, and continued whipping his head back and forth, suddenly shooting another piece of gauze transformed into a kunai into the bushes again, immediately pushing through the brambly plants to check his target. Sakura came up and banged him on the head, and he whined, inwardly thankful, it wasn't hard enough to dispel his chakra-constructed body. Tazuna shouted at him, Sasuke stood behind looking annoyed, and Sakura kept threatening to hit him on the head again. Meanwhile, Kakashi was wading into the bushes, noticing the poor, quivering rabbit splayed against a tree, the kunai stuck in the wood right above its head.

The clone could almost see the gears whirring in Kakashi's head. It was a snow rabbit, but snow rabbits' fur only turned white during the winter, and the one he was currently hugging had fur as white as freshly-fallen snow. It was obvious it had been raised inside, most likely to be used as an object for _Kawarimi_.

Kitsune nodded at his clone's good thinking. It had gotten Kakashi on guard. Which was obviously his own mind, but he hadn't thought of that because he hadn't been in that situation. Whatever, he liked complimenting himself.

"Everybody, get down!" Kakashi shouted, and the small group ducked just as an enormous sword whirled above their heads and swung back, imbedding itself into a tree and allowing the man who'd thrown it to drop down onto the handle. Everyone stared at the lithe, muscled figure balancing on the intimidating sword, fear settling in a couple pairs of eyes. Nevertheless, the shinobi settled into defensive stances, adrenaline already pumping through their veins.

"Well, well. If it isn't the rogue ninja of the Hidden Mist, Momochi Zabuza!" Kakashi strode forward, hands in pockets.

"The Copy Ninja, Sharingan Kakashi…I'm sorry, but I'll have you hand over the old man."

Kitsune could tell, even from his position high up in the trees, Sasuke stiffen and stare at his sensei. Sakura also hesitated, her green eyes reflecting confusion.

"Get back, you guys," Kakashi softly intoned, lifting up his hitai-ate. Sasuke's eyes watched, fixated on Kakashi's hand moving the headband upwards. What was revealed…was a glaring, blood red, the color of a Sharingan eye.

"Get in Manji battle formation, you guys. Protect Tazuna…Don't involve yourselves in the fight. That is the teamwork in this situation."

Sasuke carefully described the Sharingan eye after the Naruto clone demanded to know what it was, trying to buy time for the real Naruto to—well, for whatever he was doing. Zabuza picked up where he left off, while mist streamed in, blanketing the meadow and nearby body of water. Nothing was visible.

"When I was in the ANBU Black Ops of the Hidden Mist, there was information about you in the Bingo Book I carried around. There was also something else in the book—about the man who has copied over one thousand jutsu: Kakashi the Copy Ninja."

The man stared down at them, his printed forearm and calves coverings loosely disguising just how powerful he was, and his eyes glittering with an insane, fanatical stare. His dark hair moved along gently with the wind, but the rest of him stood stock-still, as if carved by stone.

Kitsune could tell that Sakura was surprised, wondering if their sensei was really that powerful, and his clone yelled breathlessly, "W-wow!"

However, Sasuke was not giving the same reaction to this as his teammates. He stared at Kakashi darkly, his mouth pulled into a thin line, wondering why his sensei suddenly possessed a trait only the Uchiha family, his family, should have. Well, had. They were all dead, now, and Sasuke clenched his teeth at that. All the more reason his supposed teacher was not supposed to possess such a prized doujutsu.

The man identified as Zabuza flickered onto the water, one arm raised straight upward and the other held in front of his bare chest, fingers curled except for the first two, and Kakashi noticed he was gathering a large amount of chakra.

"Ninja Art: Hidden Mist Jutsu," he murmured in a deep voice, and faded away.

Kakashi warned them to stay on guard, while Sakura's girly voice tried to seek comfort in knowing who he was. The information given only served to scare her even further.

A voice echoed around them, listing the eight different fatal areas he could target, his voice a calm river flowing over them, drowning them.

Kakashi released his killing intent and Kitsune could sense more than see Sasuke's immediate paralysis, Sakura's overwhelming fear, and his clone's languid relaxation. Such opposite reactions. Kakashi calmed them down, saying, "Don't worry, you guys. I'll protect you with my life."

Right after those words, the man appeared, just like that, separating the group, his feet spread wide apart, and intoned, "This is the end. It's over."

Without a thought, Kakashi rushed forward, his corded arm moving forward to send his kunai solidly into Zabuza's stomach, the direct stab inciting a choked sound from the sword master. Team 7 and Tazuna were flung in all directions, left to tumble along the grassy ground as the two powerful shinobi stood stock-still. Zabuza melted into water.

"Sensei! Behind you!" Sakura screamed, fear laced into her voice. The sharp, steel blade swung at Kakashi, passing directly through his middle—and chopping him into water. The onlookers were breathing hard as if they had been the one in the battle, their hearts having leaped into their throat after seeing their sensei chopped in half. The ragged breaths drawn by Kitsune's clone were, undoubtedly, fake, but if he hadn't had this life and had actually just been Uzumaki Naruto, he definitely would've been doing that just then. His ears pounding with every beat his heart made, blood rushing through his head, he stood up, along with his teammates, ready to make Zabuza think twice, even as Kakashi held a deadly kunai at Zabuza's throat, the sharpened edge glinting.

Kakashi then mimicked, "It's over."

Zabuza laughed and haughtily told off Kakashi, simultaneously praising his ability to distract him and copy his Water Clone technique.

"But…," he snarled, "I'm not a fool."

He burst into water, and another Zabuza, this time, the real one, appeared behind Kakashi, heat emanating from his body and sending Kakashi's warning signals into a frenzy.

His sword poised in the air, the large sword held easily with one hand—

Zabuza froze. Kakashi was unable to move, either, and wondered frantically how Zabuza had obtained knowledge about the Leaf's forbidden paralysis technique, a modification of the Temporary Paralysis Jutsu and created by one of their most talented ANBU members. But—

That wasn't it. A small, black-swathed figure leaped down, appearing out of nowhere, and was identified as a Leaf ANBU immediately. Although the figure was small, the ANBU emanated an ominous, fear-inducing aura, his mere presence causing the others to cringe in fear. The pressure lifted, and the genin exhaled shakily.

"ANBU?" Sakura questioned, surprised. The small person strode forward confidently, each stride eating up large amounts of earth until he was standing directly in front of the two shinobi locked in battle.

"Momochi Zabuza…I believe you have realized just why you should not continue."

He paused. "Hello, Kakashi."

"K-Kitsune-senpai?! What—you're the ANBU the Sandaime assigned?"

"Wait, what?" Clone Naruto asked. "What's going on?"

"Yeah, what's an ANBU doing here?"

"Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and…Tazuna the bridge builder. No need to worry. Zabuza owes me a favor."

The man just targeted growled. "Kitsune…do not interrupt this one. I am reluctant to say so, but I need the profits right now. Allow me to kill him."

"Ahh, but unfortunately, my mission doesn't allow that. I'll be releasing you two, and you better not attack—neither of you. Otherwise…"

Naruto let the threat fade. They both knew what he was capable of. He released the jutsu, and they backed up, facing each other warily.

"And Yuki Haku…there's no need to wait in the shadows."

A young man—woman? Sakura and Sasuke questioned this—jumped down, flitting to Zabuza's side quietly.

"Wait, senpai. Why does Zabuza owe you a favor?"

Zabuza twisted up his mouth, obviously angry that he did.

"He spared my life," he growled, and Kakashi started in surprise.

"_What?_ Kitsune-senpai never spares—"

"Actually, I did," he said casually, and Kakashi noticed that his voice sounded familiar—and not because he had heard it so many times on or off missions, but because of something else. What was it? He knew he was missing something, and that frustrated him.

"They were travelling through Fire Country for reasons I still don't know, and a team of ANBU happened upon them. They attacked, realizing he was a missing nin, but then I arrived, dismissed the other ANBU telling them I could handle them—and since they were temporarily without their ANBU captain, I outranked them all, so they had to leave. But, after noticing the extreme dedication Haku had towards Zabuza, I suppose out of some sort of goodness in my heart, I held my hand, and spared them, after warning them they should never be caught by ANBU again."

Zabuza nodded tersely. Meanwhile, Team 7 was still confused by the sudden change of events, and they wandered closer, Sasuke immediately pointing out, "You're short for an ANBU. And that means you're still a kid. How can you be in ANBU?"

The ANBU turned toward him and said in a monotone, "I am twelve years old. I am identified as Kitsune, and you may do whatever research you like once you travel back to Leaf Village. For now, we will leave it there."

Clone Naruto stared after his real self in wonder as he walked away, and Kitsune then turned and asked, "Are you coming?"

The rest followed, Kakashi bringing up the rear right behind Zabuza and his apprentice, or whatever Haku was, carefully watching for any threatening movements. Somehow, he didn't find any.

…

**Ha, strange end. I fixed up some weird stuff, so I hope it's sounding better than some of my previous chapters…**

**Please let me know if you like what's going on so far; is character development, plot development, overall story good? Are any characters OOC? Thanks!**

**~paracuties**


	6. Chapter 6

**Blargh so this is so badly written but. I'm still posting it anyway, because I realize that I do actually have a slightly substantial amount of readers now, than before, so…**

**I know, this is very late. Very. I was in China, though, and although that's not really an excuse since you can still access this website there, I was **_**tired**_**. Like, every day, a bunch of stuff to do. There wasn't much time to comb through a section and edit a little bit of stuff, then go through the entire process of posting a new chapter…**

**Thank you to all reviewers and favoriters and followers. I'm still curious, though; why do some people favorite and not follow? Like, isn't that just filling up your favorites list? :/**

…

As they walked, Kitsune asked Tazuna, "Would you be willing to house two missing-nin that could potentially kill you, but will not, because I am instructing them not to?"

When phrased like that, Tazuna shuddered. How could he even trust this stranger? Obviously, the ninja accompanying him did, or at least the leader of the shinobi accompanying him did, but it was still strange.

"Who _are _you? How can I believe that they'll do what you tell them to do?"

He chuckled. "Ahh, you should ask Kakashi that."

Tazuna glanced behind himself nervously. The two hired shinobi stared at him, eyes cold and hard and causing him to gulp.

"Umm…could you just explain?"

"Mm…well, I am Kakashi's superior. Was, you could say. Kakashi retired from being an ANBU a couple months ago to teach fresh-out-of-the-Academy genin. Why, I still am not sure, but he has been serving in ANBU for a long time. Anyway, he was on my team for a while, so I am familiar with him, and he familiar with me. If you don't trust me, trust him, at least, or trust the kids—which, ultimately, in a roundabout way, still leads to trusting me. I will handle Zabuza and his apprentice."

He grunted, still scared to death about allowing this Zabuza and Haku into his house. Into his home, where they could harm Inari and Tsunami, where they could kill any of them in their sleep. No. He couldn't let that happen.

"I can't let you do that. I'll kill you before that happens."

The unmasked shinobi—the porcelain mask was now hanging at his hip, although a cloth mask still obscured the bottom half of his face—quirked up an eyebrow, pale skin wrinkling on his forehead under the cover of dark hair.

"…Well, probably not. But I'll try, you know. I'll—"

"You don't have to if you don't want to, although…if I were to let them do as they pleased, they may or may not come at any random time and kill you whenever they want, however they want; or they could repay a favor to me and, because this favor they are paying is helping you, stay at your house until some…things…are solved."

Well. The feeling the boy was emanating was not pretty. It was a frightening feeling, something that the boy exuded with his smooth, controlled gait, a type of confidence you could only find in the highest, and the strongest shinobi of the countries. He gulped.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll allow two criminals into my house. But you better be watching them. They better not kill me or my family while we're sleeping."

The small ANBU chuckled dryly.

"Of course."

...

We arrived at Tazuna's house in a couple minutes, and I had Zabuza and Haku wait outside in the yard for a moment while the rest of them went inside. I could tell Kakashi was not looking forward to discussing his Sharingan with Sasuke, which would happen sometime, sooner or later. Probably sooner. Sakura was watching me with some fascination and fear, looking fearful of the fact that an ANBU had come with them, meaning this mission was much more dangerous than they had thought, but also fascinated…most likely because I had stopped Kakashi and Zabuza so easily. Two A-ranked, close to S-ranked shinobi had been stopped by one ANBU. My overabundance of chakra was the main factor in allowing that display of power to happen.

"Well, Kitsune, what do you want?" Zabuza drawled, leaning against a tree. We were in the forest, in a secluded area, and we had all checked for any eavesdroppers. None. Our conversation was safe from being overheard.

"Have you ever thought about killing Gatou? Then you could actually do the world some good, and the Land of the Waves would be forever grateful to you that you saved them from such a tyrant."

He shrugged, his massive shoulders heaving up, then down.

"I suppose I haven't ever thought about that…but what would I gain? Nothing. And my goal is to eventually overthrow the Land of Water's government—I have no need to become involved with Land of Waves."

"Wave is as good as any place to start, though. It's a small piece of land surrounded by water, and although Water is nowhere near being considered small, it's still a piece of land surrounded by bodies of water. And anyway, you could do whatever you wanted to with Waves—provided you don't bring its destruction or starvation, like Gatou has done.

"Also, all of Gatou's money left behind would not be paid to his other hired bodyguards, but taken by us, split between the Leaf and you both. It wouldn't be taken away by the government, or given to a successor, because it's all illegal—it's all from selling drugs and other such illegal things. What do you say?"

Haku spoke up. "I think it is a good idea, master. Why not? Obviously, this money's useful, and, under the possibility that Kitsune-kun will gain the citizens' favor and say that we defeated Gatou, we could maybe even start training our own shinobi from Wave—and potentially become a small ally to Water Country, but an ally all the same, and you might even be allowed to return peacefully. From there…we could actually make plans."

I nodded, satisfied. If Haku supported it, then Zabuza would at least give it some actual consideration. Zabuza scowled.

"We'll see," he finally forced out, and strode back to Tazuna's house.

…

I knocked, and a moment later Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, answered the door, recognized me, with my black hair, grey eyes, and pale skin and, of course, the ANBU mask hanging on my hip, and called inside. A moment later, Kakashi and Tazuna came, glancing at the two ex-enemies with apprehension. They stood there awkwardly, until I gestured for them to come and said, "Tsunami, your father has already agreed to allow these two nukenin to stay here for a couple nights, and if you have any questions or concerns, ask him. They will not disturb you in any way, and I'm sure they can acquire their own meals. Although, you know, everybody appreciates homemade meals once in a while."

Zabuza appeared stricken, and for the first time, looked embarrassed. He walked inside stiffly, and Kakashi followed the two upstairs. He glanced back at me, gave me a meaningful look, and then continued on his way.

"Well," I said brightly, "Thanks for letting us staying! Although I won't," I added.

"Why not?" Tsunami appeared concerned, and I smiled slightly.

"I have a lot of work to do," was all I gave as an excuse before heading upstairs. "I just need to talk with my fellow shinobi for a moment, and then I'll be on my way."

I maneuvered my way through the halls, finally coming upon the room Team7 was gathered in. Kakashi was probably reviewing the fighting tactics they had done, and congratulating them or whatever.

I opened the door at the speed of a normal person—not too fast, such as when trying to ambush whoever was inside, or not too slow, when hoping to enter a room soundlessly or avoid any traps—and the people inside whipped their heads around to face me. They relaxed marginally when they realized it was me, and resumed their relaxed positions on the floor.

Sasuke wondered at how similar the ANBU looked like him; the only difference being that the boy's eyes were lighter. Even the facial features—face shape, cheekbone height, chin shape—were similar. Well, as much as he could tell with that mask on anyway. He narrowed his eyes. Something was really off about all of this, besides the fact that someone his age could subdue his sensei and a missing-nin together.

"Kitsune, I'd like to talk to you," Kakashi said, standing up.

The pre-teen shrugged. "Sure."

They walked outside, closing the door, and the remainders of team 7 inside the room immediately huddled together.

"Don't you guys think something's weird about him?" Naruto unwittingly voiced Sasuke's thoughts. Sasuke nodded, for once agreeing with the dobe.

"Yeah, and Kakashi wanted to talk to him and was all secretive…what if…we go see what's going on?" Sakura said excitedly, but Naruto, for some strange reason, shook his head.

"I thought you liked doing these kind of things," Sasuke accused, and Naruto looked genuinely worried for a moment before leaning back and crossing his arms, saying that they looked pretty serious; what if it was something confidential?

Sakura bit her lip, annoyed and afraid that it could be. But then Sasuke, of all people, said, "I want to find out more about this guy."

He stood up, staring at them for a moment, and when Sakura hesitated and Naruto scrunched up his face, he smirked and taunted, "What, too scared, scaredy-cats?"

The twelve year old then quickly scampered out the door, making sure to lighten his footsteps with chakra. Itachi had taught him that—one of the few things _That Man _actually had done for him. It left a bitter feeling in his chest, coupled with that tiny pinch of pride from knowing he was probably the only one of his graduating class to know how to lighten sounds like that. As he stalked towards the end of the hallway—they had luckily been situated in the last room on the right—he passed by the two missing nin's room, and was tempted to spy on them instead and make sure they weren't planning anything. Their mission had been to keep Tazuna-san safe, and he wasn't going to fail now even with an ANBU letting them stay. Taking long strides, he soon reached the last door on the left, pressing his ear against the door crack and focusing.

"…mission is really that dangerous? I mean, you, the ANBU commander of all people, are coming on this mission with us. Is there something else going on here, or…?"

Sasuke backed up. The ANBU _commander?!_ That was the highest-positioned ANBU there could be; pretty much second or third in line from the Hokage's position. Why would the ANBU commander be coming along? He pressed his ear to the door again. Silence. He pressed harder, straining to hear something, but then there was suddenly air whooshing against his ear and hands and he stumbled forward a couple steps before catching himself and settling into a defensive position. And then he scowled. The kid—the ANBU commander—was standing right in front, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. It was strange, kind of like looking in a mirror and then seeing a different expression from the one you were currently wearing. Someone cleared his throat from behind him, and he turned and saw Kakashi still holding the doorknob, peering out into the hallway at two stricken faces. Well, apparently Naruto and Sakura had still decided to come after all.

"Well, Kitsune-senpai was right; you three were trying to—"

"It was just me. I wanted to find out what was up with you—you look a lot like me, and you just…act weird—so I decided to come and see what I could find out. For all I know, you could be an enemy."

For a moment, there was just the smallest, flicker of surprise before "Kitsune's" face went blank again.

"Well, apparently I should've left my mask on after all," he murmured.

"Sasuke. Trust me. He's definitely Konoha's ANBU; I personally know him."

"What if he's not? You can't ever be sure."

There was an awkward pause. "I know he's my captain. I'm familiar with him. Besides, I already received confirmation. Anyway—I suppose you three should know. Kitsune?"

"I've been following your team ever since you all left Konoha. I was hiding my chakra signature, as I always do that no matter where I am, and…well, this mission is more dangerous than you think. Kakashi—the snake seems to be on the move; you've heard, right?"

Kakashi nodded quickly, and Sasuke looked at the both of them suspiciously. Sakura and Naruto appeared just as confused as him.

"The snake's coming. I have to watch for him; he's planning something as usual—but this time, it's definitely involving Leaf on a larger, more troublesome scale."

Okay, this guy was seriously speaking in some kind of code that he didn't know, and that frustrated him.

"That _still _doesn't prove you're trustworthy," Sasuke growled.

The ANBU seemed to show frustration for once. He silently removed his outer jacket, and then pointed at his left shoulder. There it was; the ANBU tattoo that Sasuke recognized oh-so-very-well, besides the fact that it included extra parts indicating he was the commander. Itachi had had one, and he had been fascinated with it, examining every inch of the tattoo. He hated himself for adoring Itachi once. He would get his revenge on him, no matter what it took.

He then released the pressure on his chakra, and it flowed out, stunning the genin for a moment. It was powerful, _very _powerful, and the dark-haired genin supposed he was purposefully doing that—scaring the crap out of them, that is. He could admit that—begrudgingly.

"Well," the small figure said as he rolled his sleeve back down. "I hope that clarifies things, Sasuke-san; you doubted the validity of me as an ANBU as well as the validity of me being a Leaf shinobi, but I should've cleared that up with what I just showed you."

An almost imperceptible bend of his knees. "I'll be going now."

He hopped out the window, his black clothing slowly fading into the darkening environment.

"I think it's time for—"

"Dinner, everyone! And, um, the two missing-nin, I'm sorry I don't know your names, would you please join us too?"

Kakashi scratched his hair. "I suppose we should go down, then."

…

"There's sushi, fried rice, and my specialty, seaweed strips with spice, among other dishes. Help yourselves!"

"Thank you, Tsunami-san!"

"…My master and I appreciate your kindness," Haku murmurs this as they pile their plates with only the necessary amounts of food to stay healthy and then quietly slip out the door.

"Hey, where are ya going?" Tazuna barks after them, but they've already left.

"Don't worry, they're up on the roof—I can sense their chakra," Kakashi seems to smile, his visible eye crinkling up.

As they sit down, Clone Naruto can't help but notice the quiet boy sitting in his chair. He assumes he's Inari, Tazuna's grandson and Tsunami's son because the old man had mentioned the child earlier. The young boy, Inari, stares out the door with a strange look on his face—and scowls. There's a dark look on his face—at least as dark a look an eight year old can muster—and he picks at his food while the Naruto clone, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi chat happily, their mouths full of his mother's food.

He suddenly speaks up. "Mom, these guys will die…There's no way they can oppose Gatou and still win."

"Say what, you little brat?!"

Clone Naruto stabs a finger at him. "Now listen up! I'm a super hero who's gonna become an awesome ninja and become the Hokage! I don't know if it's Gatou or Chocolat or whatever…I'm not worried about those guys at all!"

"Huh, a hero. That's ridiculous! There's no such thing as a hero!" Inari tilts his head downward, a shadow darkening his eyes.

"W-What did you say?!"

"Stop that!" Sakura grabs Naruto's clone before he can pound Inari into the ground.

"If you don't want to die, you'd better hurry up and go home…" He stands up from his place at the dinner table, and shuffles towards the sliding door, sliding it open and stepping out.

"Inari, where are you going?" Tazuna asks forlornly.

"The sea…I'll be looking at the sea," he replies, and closes the door.

"I'll apologize on his behalf for the rude behavior," Tazuna sighs, telling this to the shinobi sitting there, staring at the door where Inari has left.

After dinner, Naruto stomps up the stairs to where he knows Inari is currently at.

"That brat…," he growls, "I need to teach him a thing or two!"

But as he peers inside the room, he can hear sniffles and crackly voices.

"Is he crying?" Naruto's clone murmurs to himself, watching him. His anger abruptly leaves him as he listens and hears Inari sob, choking out a "Dad…" and Naruto can't help but feel downcast.

…

The next morning, I went with my team to a small clearing to start training. The previous night, I'd snuck into the open window my clone had propped open, and immediately released the pressure I had on my chakra just as my clone popped himself. That way, they would not notice I had been gone—there would have been a constant stream of just Naruto's chakra. I didn't need to eat dinner; I had gained the energy my clone had gotten from his dinner when he popped himself. Just like information my clones gathered would be sent to me, the energy they gained from food they ate would also be given to me. After all, the whole purpose of eating is just to take the energy from all the carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins and use it. Now that I already had the energy, I didn't need the food. The memories my shadow clone also transferred told me some curious things about Inari, and I felt my curiosity grow as I thought about it. Obviously, his father died, was killed or was somehow gone now, but how? It had something to do with that "not a hero" tidbit he had said earlier to my team, I was sure. Right afterwards, he was crying over his father. There was definitely a correlation here.

But I digress. Currently, Kakashi was explaining what our training exercise would be. I had been "super excited" about it when he had mentioned it to me after I stumbled down the stairs for breakfast. He was sipping coffee behind a newspaper, and when I had gone to shake Sakura and Sasuke awake so we could hurry and start training, Sakura had shooed me away blearily, telling me she'd get up after I left, and Sasuke had reacted in an eerily similar way after he had pressed a kunai to my neck. It had taken all the control I had to restrain myself from reaching up with my hand and crushing the still moving fist, yanking it and pulling his shoulder out of the socket, then jabbing the kunai at his own neck. Instead, all I did was turn my upward movement into an "I'm innocent" gesture, palms up while I rocked back onto my heels. Sakura still looked miffed that she hadn't been able to get her "beauty sleep", but Sasuke's eyes were conveying the impatience he felt but didn't express. I turned my attention back to Kakashi.

"…Hey, Kakashi-sensei, do you know where the two missing-nin went?" Sakura interrupted him, her green eyes actually looking genuinely curious about this.

"They have names, you know," I said absentmindedly, subtly touching the ground to sense for them by pretending to trip over thin air. They weren't around for at least 50 kilometers.

The three people standing with me in the clearing looked at me strangely.

"Um…ok, Naruto, well, I just forgot them."

"Zabuza and Haku."

"Ok, Zabuza and Haku."

Awkward silence. Whatever, I didn't care. Well, I did. Why else would I be fretting about my identity being discovered so much? This would be a pretty big clue as to who I really was. But I liked those two, well enough. Well enough so that I cared they weren't only regarded as monsters.

"Well anyway, Kakashi-sensei, do you know where they are?"

"No," he shook his head. "I don't know about those two—remember, the ANBU is taking care of them." His eyes narrowed. "Speaking of which, I have a couple of questions for him. We didn't get to finish our discussion yesterday, due to…_someone _interrupting."

The corners of Sasuke's mouth curled up involuntarily.

"So…before we start, let me again explain chakra usage for a ninja, from the basics."

"At this point…," Sasuke sighed.

"Of course we know about that! Chatora, right?"

I was trying to dumb myself down in their eyes, but maybe it was a little much. They stared at me like I was crazy, and then Kakashi reprimanded gruffly, "It's chakra."

I gave the most embarrassed look I could muster. Kakashi noticed Sakura staring at me with impatience, so he gestured at her and said, "Yes, Sakura?"

She described it as physical and spiritual energy combined together to allow us to gather it and then dispel it into something else. I listened, nodded, and then he finally gave us a demonstration, first describing the exercise itself.

"You're going to be climbing trees…"

"That's _way _too easy!"

"Without using your hands."

Tree climbing, to help our chakra control. Well, Sakura would get this easily enough. She had great chakra control, one of the few things that she could actually be considered good at.

"Now, watch," Kakashi commanded, and he closed his eyes just to prove to us that this needed concentration. You could almost visibly see the blue chakra settling around his feet. As Kakashi walked toward one of the sturdy trees, he incited gasps from us as he put one foot on the rough bark, and then the other. And then he walked up the tree as if it was just part of the ground.

"Whoa! Cool!" I shouted, and he instructed us how to do this while hanging upside down from a branch.

I had a plan. I immediately put my foot on a tree, sending a large amount of chakra to my feet, which caused me to bounce back as if I had sprung off a trampoline. I flew backwards, made two clones, and substituted my actual self with a bird sitting high up in the dense branches. One of the clones allowed the other clone to hit it, causing the first to poof away, making it seem as if the real me had only created one clone to soften my landing. The bird suddenly found itself sitting on the ground very near human beings, and it flew away with a shriek. I shed the orange monstrosity, sealed it away, and watched my team for a couple moments longer as Sakura found her away onto the nearest branch, Sasuke bounced off his tree again while marking his progress with a slash of a kunai, and Kakashi helpfully pointed out to me that I had used far too much chakra.

"Yeah, I know," my clone growled, and Kakashi pulled out his book. I took that as a signal to get going on my mission.

…

I dashed towards civilization, sensing Zabuza and Haku nearby currently assassinating a very important boss of the Gatou Company, and headed towards a nearby bar with a henge of a random fisherman. I sauntered inside, faking fatigue.

"Your strongest sake," I muttered, collapsing on a stool and placing my forearms on the counter.

"What's got you so tired?" A couple fellow fishermen moved to sit next to me.

"There's none of tho' flippin' fish! All my traps 're bein' ruin'd by those bridge builders."

They nodded wisely, and then a jug of sake appeared in my line of vision. "Here, y'all," I muttered, swinging the jug towards them and splashing some into their cups. They drank it greedily, and one of them laughed, "Ya better have money fer that, that thing's 'spensive."

I just rolled my eyes and poured myself a good amount, taking only a small sip and allowing the rest to be poured back into the bottle. It was a nice trick, holding the cup at your mouth while swinging the sake bottle around having it end up right underneath your cup. I held it close, but fortunately they weren't paying attention anyway. And there weren't any of those pesky bodyguards, bouncers or such that would be paying close attention to everybody. I had gone around town yesterday, purposely seeking out the bad side of town and looking around for those places that spread all kinds of news and gossip all the time. This was one of the bars that fishermen and other people with similar or related occupations spent most of their time at, and I studied their mannerisms, accents, and topics they liked discussing for a couple of hours before leaving. This was why I knew that their traps were often being removed by the bridge-builders, because supplies needed to be hauled along and the whole setup of the bridge needed to be…well, set up.

"Heyy," I faked a slur, "Anybody hear of anythin' strange happenin' lately?"

"Whatcha mean?"

"I've been hearin' that there's these weird fish swimmin' around and bein' caught by us, and they start bitin' you like a dog! I—"

One of them slammed me on the back. "That's old news, you senile old man!"

Okay, so I didn't really like being called a "senile old man". I was a kid, for God's sake!

I guffawed. "Ya know me, always travelin' everywhere! Don' catch up on much news these days, no."

I was hoping they'd be so drunk in their stupor they wouldn't realize they hadn't actually known me before this, and wouldn't ever again, and luckily, they were just that drunk.

"Yeahhhh, I hear 'bout it. Couple years 'go, these weird fish 'ppeared and bit through our nets and everything…it was weird. It didn't swim real well either, had fur-like stuff on its back and moved slowly, but—well, really weird. Didn' do any good for us fishermen, either."

"Bu' then a couple 'o months 'go, there were more of these guys, 'cept they had less fur, and could swim faster than before! There were also these mutant crabs and lobsters, and nobody bought 'em when we got the rare chance to catch and kill 'em," another fisher drawled, a little anger appearing in his features at the mention of it.

"Man, I was mad! Took so long to catch 'em, but still couldn' sell them! They 'ventually died out again, though, and I 'cided to fish somewhere else too."

This was finally going somewhere. I knew Orochimaru had had a base somewhere here before, but there had not been many investigations about this one since there were only a couple reports about it before he apparently left again. I had to bring that previous incident up, and then have it slowly guided to the right topic, but they did that for themselves and I would hopefully be able to figure out about where the base was from their loose lips. Yeah, taking advantage of common people: what shinobi did all the time.

"Where'd ya move to?"

"Ha, as if I'm gonna tell ya that! You're not goin' to steal all my fish!"

"Aw, come on, we're fellow fishermen! At leas' tell me wha' area I should stay away from…"

"Alrigh', alrigh'. Stay 'way from Blue Cove, ya know, that area where there's like tons of trees and rocks bu' once ya get there, there used to be tons of good fish? Stay 'way from there. Got the most mutant fish there."

"Thanks, y'all! Thanks for helpin' me."

I poured the rest of the sake into their cups, poured the tiniest leftover bit into my cup as well, and downed it. If I even got drunk from that tiny bit, the Kyuubi would burn it all out of my system before I could even take a tipsy step forward. Just to show how gracious I was being today, I paid for that expensive bottle, and added a tip.

My "fellow" fishermen ogled at the money, and then each had to slap me on the back again, grinning and showing their thanks.

I stood up sloppily, told them I had to go, and stumbled outside, stumbling away into a quieter, less populated area before using _shunshin _to travel to Blue Cove. It was in the northeast area, facing the wide ocean, and happened to have a very un-shallow drop from the shore. There was no gradual slope downward, just a sharp drop down, down into the water, where it'd be perfect to set up a base right next to the edge of the island and experiment without any fear of discovery.

Perfect for Orochimaru, and perfect for me to figure out how to gain access to it and find any clues about what he'd be doing to Konoha. Hm. I'd just have to figure out exactly _how _to get there, now…

…

This was taking forever. First of all, there were a bunch of snakes around here, and so the smell of them was messing with my sense of smell—I'd thought I could sniff out that slippery bastard's entrance (I was pretty sure he wouldn't just dive straight into the water and _swim_ all the way down there), but apparently not. Second of all, I was bad with genjutsu. Sure, my genjutsu skills could be ranked as B-rank, but compared to S-rank in ninjutsu and fuuinjutsu, and A-rank in taijutsu and kenjutsu…it was pretty bad. Orochimaru was all about illusions and deception anyway, so it made sense to me that he'd be good at genjutsu and hide his entrance.

And then third of all…okay, so I had no third of all. And that was…embarrassing, to say the least. I should have more complications than that in order to stop me; only two little things preventing me for hours of accessing Orochimaru's base? And so maybe it had "only" been thirty minutes, but…if I was on a mission to infiltrate a heavily-guarded enemy base, I would've totally been caught by now. Or maybe not. Either way, guards or not, I wasn't getting in.

"Ergh!" I punched a tree in frustration, and watched in satisfaction as a large crack spread up and down the tree, the splitting of dry wood making a resounding _crhhh _as the tree practically split in half.

It hit the ground, bounced a little, and I almost expected something to happen. Like, you know, in one of those movies where the detective's searching forever, and acting out of anger or doing something else other than searching, and then suddenly they discover what they're looking for. Like, bam. It's just right there; they spent no effort at all finding it and spent tons of effort previously _trying_ to find it.

Well. Anyway. I rubbed my eyes, and continued on. Once I reached a hazy, foggy area for the 120th time, I tried dispelling a genjutsu. I felt slightly confused and foggy here, or maybe that was just from the humidity. Either way, something seemed to happen this time. There was a pop, and I almost jumped back in fright when my vision went double and then cleared to—there was nothing but _spiders _right in front of my nose. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not afraid of spiders. Why would I be? I'm a shinobi, I'm not afraid of anything!

…I stepped back fluidly. I _didn't_ jump, I really didn't scramble backwards practically tripping over my feet. I examined what was in front of me, and I realized the genjutsu made me swerve around this structure even if I thought I was heading straight. The mound of rock I had found those little arachnids crouched upon seemed to be a shinobi-made structure that Orochimaru had discovered and decided to use. It could've been from a battle, from a long-lost civilization; anything, really. The point was, his genjutsu was strong. At least, I hoped so. I didn't need my pride ruined any further. I walked around it, and realized there was a small hole, large enough for an adult to crawl into, set right at the base of it facing the ocean. I took my chances, crawled inside, and suddenly things were dark and I had that jolting sensation of free-falling, where your internal organs just _move, _your hair's flying straight up, your breath is ripped away…I steadied myself with chakra onto the wall after making sure there weren't any spiders or seals there. After sliding a couple yards, I finally skidded to a stop, and jogged the rest of the way down, checking the floor, walls and ceiling for any traps and skittering past them.

**...**

**Well, there you have it. A slightly longer chapter. Actually, way longer. I think. I really need to finish this story, though. **

**Please, please review! I love reviews!**

**~paracuties**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter seven finally here, guys. Sorry for the wait. **

**Disclaimer: I'm making no profit off of this.**

…

Clone Naruto and Sasuke continuously competed, the rivalry between them growing ever the larger. Sakura was far too tired to continue; her chakra reserves were long depleted and her physical energy long gone as well. It was amazing how the boys could have so much stamina…and especially Naruto, she could admit reluctantly.

It was really disappointing. She had, although with slight difficulties in the beginning, climbed high up, found it quite easy, and then looked over at Sasuke-kun only to see that he was still struggling. At the slightly jealous and angry look shot at her, her triumphant grin had melted and her mood plummeted. Naruto tossed over a "good job," and Kakashi gave her one of his trademark weird-U-shaped eye-smile, before telling her to work on increasing her chakra reserves. The boys needed chakra control, she needed chakra reserves. They needed to share skills/assets. Alas, it wasn't as easy as, say, sharing different fruits among each other. It wasn't fair! How come Sasuke was so interested in competing with Naruto, while only directing nasty looks at her?!

And then she realized she was feeling jealous of _Naruto, _and she promptly sat up, shook her head, and proceeded to run over to the sweating idiots—er, teammates—and brightly share a couple tips. Naruto thanked her, Sasuke grunted in annoyance, and they both ran up their battered trees again. Why wouldn't they ever include her? Why was she the one always left out? And that was what she was thinking was _truly _unfair, Sakura realized. It wasn't only Sasuke's attention she wanted, it was the two boys' acceptance she needed. Kakashi somehow noticed how melancholy she was feeling, and smiled at her—at least, his eye crinkled up and his cloth mask stretched into a different shape.

"Sakura, keep working on building up your chakra reserves! You might not catch up to these two power-houses on your team, but you'd definitely match many others in your Academy class, and even blow past them, if you work that little bit harder."

She nodded obediently. But she couldn't help but glance over at Sasuke-kun and Naruto again, her sharp eyes pinpointing the competitive smirk on Sasuke's face and the full-blown grin stretched out on Naruto's face. They were happy, competing against each other. She wasn't.

…

It definitely hadn't been easy, he could say. He let out the breath he'd been holding and shook his head gently, careful not to let drops of water that had started beading on his skin from the moisture in the air fling onto precious documents. Alright. Now down to business.

Even down here, his henge into the Sasuke look-alike was held in place, in case Orochimaru had some sort of security that could notify him of Kitsune's other identity. The air was stale down here, but he could put energy into it and send it flying, which was essentially creating his own, personalized wind. A slight beckon caused a drawer to slide open silently, and he clumsily rifled through the thick jungle of folders—the human hand's abilities were too complicated to copy completely—until he realized everything was in code. Seriously? He didn't think it would take too much time decoding it however, because it didn't seem realistic that Orochimaru would waste that much time creating one when there was already enough security for this unimportant base.

Eventually, Kitsune reached a paper where it mentioned Konoha and found a couple of diagrams hidden beneath a genjutsu. And that's when something went wrong.

No, not for him. Not for Kitsune; he was currently being Very Careful—except something didn't feel right. Something that he sensed throughout his entire being, and he carefully made a clone, handed the paper to it, and left without a word, air still trying to replace the space he previously occupied as he ran across the surface of the ground.

…

Having given up after numerous attempts to interact with her teammates, Sakura left, wandering around town and only glancing up when she heard the faint sound of a muffled scream. Everybody else continued to scurry quietly around, paying attention only to their current task and indicating they hadn't heard it. Well, she was a shinobi, and she congratulated herself on subconsciously keeping all her senses on alert before discreetly stepping off to the side and then employing her new skill.

Her feet touched the side of the building, and then she was suddenly running sideways, the world turned and gravity still trying to pull on her backside. Attempting to concentrate on where she had heard it, Sakura closed her eyes, slowed down, and focused—and then there was suddenly a splintering sound of glass shattering right above her, and she instinctively squeezed shut her eyes tighter, bent down and rolled, still sticking to the side of the building but rolling off to the side to avoid the sharp fragments aiming straight at her. Some of the smaller pieces still hit her and she squeaked, cuts forming on her arms and legs and face, frightened. What was going on?!

Sakura stayed crouched on the side of the building for a while, until her legs reminded her that she had quit training for the time being for a reason and she carefully stepped closer to the shattered window, almost all of the glass blown out with a tremendous force. Peered inside. Widened her eyes. Gasped.

That small sound alerted one of the two people closest to her that she was there, and Naruto shooed her away frantically. Completely baffled but annoyed by Naruto's actions, she swung herself inside, crying out when her hand was stabbed with a leftover glass shard still clinging onto the window.

"Damn it," Naruto muttered, and, now that she noticed, stood up from where he was crouched over—Haku, wasn't it?—stepping over the prone body and yanking Sakura's hand away from her chest where she was clutching it in pain.

His hand, still covered in the slippery substance of blood gripped her wrist tightly, and the other, covered in even more of the violent, maroon liquid—if that was possible—was quickly wiped on his…his _ANBU clothing? _Naruto then reached forward and pressed against her cut, green light flowing out of his hand and closing her wound. White hot pain zipped up from her palm all the way to her shoulder, and Sakura sucked in a breath, teeth clenched and hand frozen with agony. It felt raw and sharp, jagged, without the smooth, calm warmth that she remembered receiving from a nurse once when she had broken her arm in the Ninja Academy while training. That had been very painful to say the least, and she'd wished to never experience a broken bone again until the nurse had healed the majority of her leg and it had suddenly been enveloped in a pleasantly numbing sensation, filled with warmth and a feeling similar to the comfort of her mother's soothing hand.

Now, though, with Naruto here, pushing the harsh green glow into her slowly healing cut, she wondered if that was only her imagination, imagining the warmth from the nurse's healing.

However, Naruto clarified it, saying, "I'm not good with medical jutsu. I can only do basic healing, mending, stitching, and it's difficult for me anyway, so it'll feel more painful than a regular doctor.

"Your hand should be fine, though. Stay away from that area with Zabuza. He and Haku were attempting to kill Gatou—you should know that, by the way—but for some reason Gatou had five more unexpected-and-hired missing-nin. Haku saved Zabuza earlier from them because they caught the two of them off guard and they're pretty fast. They have good teamwork, and they're quick, as I said, so even though he's the Demon of the Mist, it's going to be harder than usual. I already sent a clone to Kakashi, and he should be on his way. Stay out of this fight."

This was quickly rushed out in a span of about twenty seconds, but amazingly, Naruto was keeping his voice level and loud and words were still enunciated clearly for her to understand. It almost sounded like he was briefing her on the current state of the mission, and now that he had given orders, she needed to do her part—which was to stay out of this fight.

And then her brain finally caught up with everything now that there was no pain in her hand and she was relatively calmer, and—something strange was happening. Her mind struggled to equate loud, brash and dumb Naruto with the young man in front of her, frantically trying to save an acquaintance's life.

"Naruto, what are you doing?! How do you know medical jutsu? How did you get here? Why are you so—so—"

"Haruno-san! If you were a teammate of mine, I would tell you to distract a missing-nin away from Zabuza, because he's currently fighting a losing battle. Or, I would tell you to kill Gatou who's trapped in the corner right now, you know, the fat guy practically pissing his pants and waving his arms around trying to get his hired bodyguards to let him out of the room, but I don't think you know much about assassination _or _simply fighting high-level shinobi. You're not on the level, at all, of any of them, and it would be easier to not have to worry about your safety as well when Kakashi and I are battling any of them."

She shut up after that, realizing Zabuza was slowly being backed away, closer and closer towards Naruto and Haku, and Gatou was finally able to escape—

"Stop right there!" Sakura screeched, racing to get between him and the doorway.

"Auhhh!" Gatou jiggled his chin and cheeks, and then continued to jiggle the rest of his body as he scuttled out the door. Sakura was faster though, and she reached the doorway as he was still turning the corner into another hallway, tumbling over a slain bodyguard—one of the pathetic samurai—and getting his own limbs tangled.

Unfortunately, just as she reached him and apprehension filled her as to what she was supposed to do, Gatou wriggled free and raced down the hallway again.

"_Stop!_"

Acting completely on instinct, Sakura bent her knees slightly, creating tension in her quadriceps, gluteal, and calf muscles, before springing off her feet, soaring into the air and crashing on top of the fat man, the breath knocked out of her even with such a large cushion.

"Stop moving, or else I'm…I'm going to, uh, kill you!" Sakura pulled out a kunai and held it at his neck, desperately hoping he didn't feel the tremor in her hand or discern her hesitation as bluffing. Her hand tilted the blade at just the right angle to cleanly slice through the major artery, the knowledge stored inside her brain somewhere and finally being put to use.

"Now," the pink-haired kunoichi slowly clambered off his back and continued to press the kunai at his neck, "You are going to…stand up, and show me where you keep all your important files, money, and whatever. Remember, Zabuza and Haku already killed all of your other guards, and they're fighting the last five right now. So you can't run away, or else I'm really going to kill you."

She sincerely hoped that that was true. Her previous statement, of course. If any of the guards were left, even one, she'd probably run away screaming and completely fill his expectation of her—a weak, pathetic little girl trying to play ninja. And she didn't think she'd be able to kill him—probably knock him unconscious, but her breath was already coming in short gasps as she attempted to keep herself steady.

Sakura swallowed, adrenaline keeping her body thrumming with tension. She'd probably collapse after all of this was over, if she could even last this long.

Gatou did as he was told, his eyes shining with a crazed and fearful look. The rosette had certainly surprised him, but she was still a little girl. She did not have the confident, strong stance of a powerful kunoichi, and maybe if he was able to guide her into a room with large and plentiful windows, he could surprise her and push her through one. That'd definitely get rid of her, but what if her teammates came after him for that? …He'd just blame it on his hired missing-nin.

Yeah. That would work. "It-it's this way," Gatou made sure to stutter, trying to appear afraid of her. It seemed to fool the twelve year old, and he smirked inwardly. What an oblivious little girl.

"Move," she commanded him, and he obeyed, "meekly" but briskly stumbling into a room that contained furniture, appearing to hold precious documents. Instead, it held only stale, musty air, but she didn't need to know that. She'd be falling out of a window instead.

"They're—they're in there," he mumbled, pointing at them, and she beckoned him forward, a wary look in her eyes. Hm. The kunoichi wouldn't be falling for that, although he hadn't expected her to. Gatou walked forward again, hand reaching down before a pale, strong hand gripped his forearm.

"Actually—I'll look. Um, you stand there. Don't go anywhere. If you…if you so much as twitch, I'll have to restrain you."

He nodded, all the while laughing his head off inside. Perfect. She had positioned herself against the wall—or rather, the window, thinking she'd have herself safely backed up by the window and wall, glancing between Gatou on her left and the drawer handles.

Just as her hand latched onto the knob and began sliding out the drawer, Gatou slammed into her, knocking her completely off balance and pushing her straight towards the window. Unfortunately, he only rammed her into the glass, where cracks spidered out and she straightened up after letting out a cry, now frightened. Gatou prepared for another slam, until realizing her kunai was already at his neck. Again.

He growled, this time knowing he had not much of a chance—or did he? She didn't seem able to go through with the motion. She might cut him, but as long as he was quick, he could reach the window and push her fragile little body through it. He quickly backed up, ducking his head down while turning it away and she hesitated, her hand gripping the kunai so tightly her knuckles turned white. She couldn't. She couldn't stab him. Her hand shook, and Gatou chuckled humorlessly, before propelling himself forward and roughly pushing her aside, pulling open the window and grabbing a fistful of her hair to pull her back. She shrieked, but the man had no sympathy. Once she was in front of the window, a meaty hand on her wrist to keep the kunai pointed away from him, the other let go of her beautiful rosy hair and he bodily slammed her through the delicate screen. Her knees attempted to hook onto the windowsill before the rest of her body slammed against the wall and the breath was knocked out of her, head throbbing and bruised.

That caused her to let go, and rational thought left her as she plummeted. She wasn't close enough to the wall to stick to it with chakra—and even if she was, it'd be near impossible to stick to it going at her current speed, and with her current ability. She had just learned this technique, for God's sake! It was a miracle she had even been able to climb up the wall and _roll _along it in the first place. Sakura let out a piercing wail, certain she was falling to her death. She'd never have the chance to talk to her family, her team, and her friends ever again, never do anything ever again, because she'd be dead. With that morbid thought, she cut herself off, unwilling to die in such an embarrassing, weak way. She'd only seem stupid screaming all the way down, although falling to her _death _seemed to be a good enough justification.

Oh, she was going to die anyway. Why not let it all out? She wasn't Sasuke; she wasn't stoic and unmoving. She wasn't Naruto, with a seemingly bottomless pit of bravado, trying to act cool. She was Sakura. And she was going to scream.

Just as she opened her mouth again, vocal chords preparing to start up, a black-clothed, lithe figure shot out the broken window above her, turning him or herself vertically and plummeting towards her. The person immediately caught up to her, appearing to be balancing on the air itself, before gently catching her—_in the middle of plummeting to her death, too—_and planting his or her feet on the wall, almost gliding for a little bit before slowing down.

She stared up at blond, spiky hair, tan skin, and an—ANBU tattoo? _The_ commander tattoo, as well—what?! Her mind jumbled and confused, she could only stare as he turned warm blue eyes to her and asked if she could stand. On the wall, of course. Sakura applied chakra to her feet again, that same, strained feeling coming back. Ow. She was tired, but there was still a job to be done.

"What—Naruto? …Is that you?"

The warmth in the boy's eyes faded a little, mouth pressed into a grim line.

"Like I said earlier, questions later. Boss sent a clone after you ran after Gatou to make sure nothing happened, and that clone created another clone—me—after Gatou pushed you out the window. Come on—we're not going to be sticking to the wall all day; I can tell you're tired."

The ANBU gently nudged her forwards—or upwards?—and she stepped towards the window again, limbs heavy. By the time she clambered back in, Gatou was efficiently stabbed through the heart, the clone and his kunai with the blood on it gone, and the blond stepped in after her, smoothly swinging in and pressing her down. Belatedly, Sakura realized he was trying to get her to sit on the ground, and she sank, knees wobbly and hands shaking.

She looked up towards the ANBU, and started. Sasuke? No, not Sasuke. But he looked like the ANBU Kakashi had been talking with before, the one who said he had come along on the mission to, apparently, watch the "snake". Whatever that meant. She still didn't understand.

"I thought—I thought—" Sakura pressed her palms to her face, rubbing her forehead tiredly. Had she imagined Naruto? That was just—

"Haruno-san."

The monotone of his voice commanded her to look at him again, and he asked her if she had any injuries, a roll of bandages loosely held in one hand.

She shook her head no, knowing injuries meant actually serious ones. She only had a couple of scratches on her skin, ones that would heal pretty quickly without much guidance.

"Alright. Then I'll be going. Boss needs as much chakra as possible, even though he's a powerhouse after creating hundreds of clones anyway."

The clone poofed away, smoke clouding the air, and Sakura was left alone in the room with a prostrate body lain directly in front of her, cold blood and cold skin chilling the dark room.

…

I ducked, the nukenin's blade slashing a couple inches above my head, but even as his arm swung over, I was positioning myself to aim a kick at his jaw. I shot up from the ground with chakra, glancing off his cheek and fisting my hand into his hair as I passed over his head. The rough, coarse texture allowed for a pretty stable grip, so I was able to yank him backwards and onto the ground, pulling my left arm back for a punch directly into his stomach. He was downed, but only for a couple of seconds. I slid a blade out my left sleeve, stabbing it backwards while bending my knees and pulling out my katana. The sword easily slid across his neck, cutting into arteries, sinewy muscle and tendons. He was dead.

I flipped around again, shoulders bunched up as I hurled myself at the man I almost stabbed with the wakizashi, initiating a sword fight with him as bright red blood splattered onto my bare arm from the man's other teammate, cut straight in half from Zabuza's zanbatou.

There seemed to be two different teams. One consisted of two quick-on-their-feet, taijutsu expert missing-nin that worked fairly well together. They were currently being taken care of by Kakashi, who'd arrived a couple of seconds ago, relieving Zabuza of almost half his enemies. The other consisted of, obviously, three members, who all worked as a long-standing team, each knowing almost exactly what the others were about to do. They were fast, but with my control over wind, I could push their blade, fist or foot a couple of inches away from their target, confusing them and messing up teamwork. That was how I'd been able to get rid of one of them, and with the second teammate killed with a slice of Zabuza's sword, it was much simpler. It was now two on one, Zabuza and I fighting the last of their group. This would be almost child's play.

Rage fired up in the man's eyes, seeing as how we had cut down both his teammates with a flick of a blade. He charged recklessly at me, finding me to be a smaller opponent, and I almost lazily ducked under his punch, jabbing my wakizashi at his knees while sliding my katana above him. He avoided both blades, maneuvering himself directly into Zabuza's grasp, who easily cleaved him in two. Instantaneous death.

Kakashi's opponents were still standing, but warily circling him instead. Unlike the group Zabuza and I had been fighting, these two seemed to be slightly smarter and didn't charge in recklessly. Yes, maybe the previous nuke-nins' cohesion as a unit made up for some of that recklessness, but that didn't mean it had saved those three the end.

The last two missing-nin recognized who he was. Sharingan no Kakashi, the Copy Ninja. They also recognized Zabuza as the Demon of the Mist, and one widened his eyes at me and whispered to his teammate, presumably pointing out that I was the Red Slash. Well, not presumably, because I had such superior hearing—it was by far the greatest of my senses, and I had had all my senses tested before; all of them except taste were accelerated and at least two times as strong as a regular shinobi. Unfortunately, taste was degraded. For some strange, disgruntling reason.

The missing-nin were outnumbered, and all three of us were prone to kill every last one of our opponents. Fear showed on their faces then, and I noticed how their hands shook, not only from fatigue, but from the pure terror at facing three of the strongest shinobi of the elemental countries. I had a touch of respect for them as they gripped their swords in sync with a determined look appearing. They were going to fight to the death. I quickly created ten clones, and they dashed out the door, intent on their self-employed mission.

With a furious swing, one of the nukenin came at me while the other went for Kakashi, seeing as how Zabuza's zanbatou was quite difficult to fight against. Zabuza, appearing a little miffed, went for my opponent, but he jumped behind me and shoved me at the sword, taking advantage of my lighter weight to throw me around.

Annoyed, I stabbed backwards with the wakizashi again, and he threw me off to the side, ducking away from Zabuza's large sword. He continuously weaved around, avoiding Zabuza, and I materialized a wind blade, charging at him from behind. He assumed I was going for a punch, and only allowed room to avoid a punch—resulting in a large gash across his chest. Zabuza, apparently getting tired of him, moved to fight with Kakashi instead. I was left facing him alone. Oh, well. All the more in my favor. I panted, coming at him with a slower wind blade, and he easily avoided it this time. In a flurry of taijutsu, my opponent slowly gained the upper hand, roughly pulling the wakizashi out of my hand with an expert twist of his kunai. The same kunai cut the strap holding my katana off my back. I didn't go easy on him, of course, but allowed him to get closer, and closer, and closer…right as he was starting to smile victoriously, fist prepared to smash into my face, I smirked, noticing an obvious opening, open because of his carelessness—he thought he was fighting a weaker opponent, but he was wrong. I pulled out a kunai fastened to my side underneath my ANBU vest. It slid in between two of his ribs, and he turned pale, but stubbornly continued with his punch. I let the punch blow past my ear, and grabbed his wrist, quickly snapping it and then reaching for his neck. With another twist, his neck was broken.

Sighing, I let the body fall. Glassy eyes stared up at the ceiling, and with a bit of respect still in place for him, I bent down to close his eyes. Kakashi and Zabuza had long finished up with my opponent's partner. We stood there silently, a heavy feeling hanging in the air. However, that was immediately broken when there were shouts from the doorway, and two boys burst into the room, followed quietly by their female teammate.

They halted, eyes wide at the scene of destruction. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, and a strange part of me craved it—until I realized that was the Kyuubi's doing again. I furiously suppressed it, and turned to Kakashi and Zabuza, the former of which was speaking.

"Now, Gatou's money needs to be split. Zabuza, did you happen upon any room you suspected to hold money or anything of that sort?"

A weak voice grabbed our attention. "We found a couple of possible areas."

"Haku," Zabuza rumbled, and I could detect audible relief in his voice. He strolled almost languidly over to Haku, bending down and helping him to sit up. Haku climbed to his feet slowly, his hand pressed to his chest—no doubt because of the deep cut of the blade, but also from my volatile chakra. Haku had saved Zabuza because of that though, taking a direct hit from one of the missing-nin and preventing Zabuza's death or at least incapacitation. At least he hadn't bled to death, thanks to my instincts leading me here.

"Hm," Kakashi surveyed the room, taking in the damaged property. "Kitsune-senpai, do you want to create a hundred clones or something to clean up this building?"

I nodded sharply. "Yes, I'll be doing that. Also, earlier, I sent a couple clones to search the building. One of them popped just recently to let me know where Gatou's money seems to be located, and I have a few other locations in mind if that room is not where Gatou put his money, as well. They need his identification though, so I'll first be heading to the room Sakura-san was previously in."

I turned to Team 7. "You three will—wait."

I narrowed my eyes. Quickly, I slapped my hand onto the floor, immediately realizing there were a couple of hired bandits, mercenaries, and other people Gatou had hired for him leftover, somehow having escaped Zabuza's and Haku's wrath and about to storm into this room right this moment. Right through that doorway that Sakura and Sasuke were still standing in front of. My clone had instinctively moved to stand in front of a wall the moment they had stepped inside the room, but Sakura and Sasuke had not. My lips curled in annoyance, I shouted, "Duck!" and hurled shuriken through the air to connect with the incoming enemies' throats, a solid "thunk" reverberating and a gurgling gasp following after. The ones behind them widened their eyes and fled, but were intercepted by my clones not too soon after and killed on the spot anyway.

I cleared my throat, relaxed my arm, and continued. "You three will also be cleaning up the building, although you can stay away from the bodies if you'd like. If you're fine with it though, Uchiha-san, you could use Katon jutsu to burn away the bodies. Just don't start a fire."

I turned back to my peers. "Would you all just stay here and wait? I'll grab Gatou, and then we can get his money and split it."

…

**Thank you to all reviewers, followers, and favoriters! I'm excited by the growing number of you guys! **

**Please review! I'd seriously actually like to know what you guys think about the ideas and events in this story. I have no idea what other people really think about my story, so some feedback about anything in my story would be nice. Thanks!**

**~paracuties**


	8. Chapter 8

**Yes, I know. I'm apparently updating monthly now. Which, honestly, is what I hate when I'm reading a good story, but I'm not sure if you would consider this good so. (And anyone else keep typing "god" instead of "good" all the time? I wrote at first, "…I'm not sure if you would consider this god so." and then—well, that's not exactly what I was trying to say.)**

**This chapter is short and weird; it's just a transition chapter I guess. Hope you enjoy it anyway.**

**Disclaimer: I'm profiting off none of this.**

…

With the Gatou problem mostly fixed and kind-of-not-really removed, we headed back to Tazuna's house. Eventually, the bridge was finished, and with our mission complete, Team 7 headed home, waving goodbye to Tazuna and his family, the villagers, and Zabuza and Haku, the new leaders of Wave.

I still followed silently after them, leaping from branch to branch and masking my chakra whilst watching them amble along the dirt road. It was so much easier after I had designed the seal to hold a henge in place, without any concentration whatsoever. I had been thinking about it for a while, but inspiration finally came to me after the whole Gatou business and it was completed in Wave. Especially since whenever I panicked completely, my concentration wavered and my henge would fall, resulting in the mess with Sakura—and I did _not _want that to happen again. That incident spurred on my inspiration and desire for this seal's creation, at least.

Even with the seal though, I had to carefully allow ambient chakra to "cover" me, in a sense, so that the area I was occupying was not seen as a "hole". It technically wasn't possible to have an empty area devoid of chakra, because nature didn't allow that—it would only _seem _like there was one when a shinobi attempted to hide him- or herself by masking their chakra, thereby, if you were a good chakra sensor, realizing an enemy shinobi was attempting to mask their chakra.

It was frightening to know, however, that even with all my effort poured into concealing my identity, even with all this time and energy wasted on preventing anybody from discovering the two sides of me, _Sakura _was suspecting me. Sakura. The seemingly frivolous, _pink-haired _kunoichi. I was too careless, obviously. I had not thought, and had not sensed, in the midst of a sudden, ferocious battle, my female teammate coming upon Gatou's building and _running up the side of it _to discover what was going on_. _Completely unexpected, and as a shinobi, that was really troublesome. I was supposed to expect the unexpected, expect anything and everything possible and impossible to happen, and be prepared for _anything—_except I hadn't. I _hadn't _expected it, and therefore I was really, to put it in colloquial terms, screwed.

Sakura's eyes wandered up to the trees again. I scowled underneath my black mask. She was obviously looking for Naruto—for _me. _KitsuneNaruto. The strangest combination if there ever was one, personality-wise.

For the next few hours, I scowled every time Sakura glanced up at the trees, and my clone yelled something especially annoying and loud to jerk her attention back—which, to my dismay, did not warrant a slam on its head, nor yells and screams, but instead just a Sakura that regarded it curiously and frowned. I knew Kakashi sensed something was off, and Sasuke probably did too. For the most part, I was happy with Sasuke. There was most likely a wobbly friendship forming between them. Er, us. …I was regarding it too objectively, I realized, and pulled my eyebrows together, frowning. I saw Sasuke as a friend when I was acting as Naruto, and I truly felt a strong friendship between the two of us, but when I donned my ANBU mask and pulled off Naruto's clothing, it suddenly seemed so far away, and I couldn't see him as _my _friend in this clothing. Call me superficial, if you will, but it was just a very strange feeling I couldn't explain.

Sasuke started glancing upwards toward the trees too, noticing Sakura's head swinging back towards the trees as if pulled by a string. I wanted to mutter something, anything, but on duty ANBU never uttered a single unnecessary word. And a string of curses was the last thing I needed for Kakashi to pick up with his amazing hearing and wonder why his ex-captain was frustrated for no reason.

"Are you nervous towards the ANBU following us, Sakura?"

So Kakashi decided to interpret it that way. Thank God.

"Uhh—"

Startled green eyes swung towards the white-haired shinobi.

"Don't be afraid. ANBU in action are always scary like that, with the whole blood splattered across their faces and everything. And killing a person with a single kunai to the throat."

There was a slight laugh hidden somewhere in there, and Sakura obviously detected it when her eyes turned stormy and she huffed, "I'm not afraid!"

Big blue eyes blinked at her. "What are you afraid of, Sakura?" A large smile stretched across a tan face. "I'll protect you from anything, my beauty!"

She seemed about ready to smack him away, and there was a slight hesitation before she did so anyway. Probably remembered that she wasn't supposed to be fooled by my act anymore, but then decided to act as any normal person would do, even if the target was an ANBU. And thank goodness that I had developed a seal specifically designed for my shadow clones to hold their solidity under stronger pressure back in Wave, too. All my newly-developed seals were practiced on shadow clones, and since I had already had many of them still wandering around after trying out the solidity seal, I practiced with the henge-holding seal on them as well. Some experienced a couple painful deaths, in which I certainly did not enjoy having their memories sent back, but it was better than trying it on myself. Obviously.

The rest dissolved into chuckles, I noticed a slight twitch of the mouth on Sasuke's face—good, I was finally cracking his shell—and I was no longer targeted by any more curious, but rather wary, glances on the way back home.

…

"Hokage-sama," we bowed and Kakashi handed the mission report to the Sandaime. Old-but-wise eyes unfurled the paper, glancing over it before nodding.

"Good job on the teamwork," he smiled, and then dismissed us. I hid among the other ANBU with my entire ANBU commander look on, while creating a clone to follow my team out, and then slid out of the shadows to discuss my other mission.

"So, Kitsune, what did you find?"

After I had dealt with Gatou and returned to Tazuna's house, around nighttime after dinner, my clone had popped to let me know it had found important information. I had slipped out of my sleeping bag, silently created another clone with_out _that popping sound and puff of smoke, and jumped out the open window letting in the breeze. I landed in a crouch while my clone took my place in the sleeping bag.

"Boss," a whisper came from up in the trees, and I found my way up there where my clone silently handed me the information. I reviewed the material, having already had it stored in my head from the previous popping of my clone's clone, before pulling out a scroll and sealing all of it inside it. After marking it quickly with a bit of my blood, simply to remind myself that that was the most important scroll, my clone dissipated and I hopped back through the window with a chakra-enhanced jump.

With this scroll still stored in my backpack, I pulled the bag around and located the proper scroll, removing it from the confines of my backpack. A flick, and suddenly the documents appeared on the laid-open parchment, still stacked haphazardly in my rush to get back inside before Sasuke or Kakashi heard anything.

"Hokage-sama, if you look through those papers, you will find all of Orochimaru's plans and diagrams with the translation of the code attached. What he seems to have planned here is to attack Konoha during the Chuunin Exams, and to employ Suna's help in doing so. Their jinchuuriki, the host of Shukaku, the One-Tailed Raccoon, will play a large part. At least, that is what Orochimaru plans to do. It also seems that he planned to form a village—he scrawls 'Otogakure' on the side, here. Since that is a new village we've heard about recently, I think it is safe in assuming Orochimaru successfully became the leader of this village. Together, Oto and Suna may be collaborating as of now and planning a surprise invasion during our upcoming Chuunin Exams."

The Hokage's face was grave. "This is bigger than I expected," he sighed, rubbing his temples for a little bit before picking up Orochimaru's plans and glancing through them.

His eyes narrowed. "And it mentions that Danzo is involved too…"

I nodded. "Yes. I do not know what that means. It only mentions him briefly there."

I waited a while longer as the Sandaime perused the papers, paying special attention to the diagrams. He nodded after a while, then turned to me and cleared his throat.

"Kitsune, I'd like you to rest for the rest of this day because tomorrow, you will be getting the entirety of the ANBU tests ready. The day after that will be the ANBU testing. It is mostly set up, but since there is the addition of your idea, we still need you to make sure everything has been properly done. After the ANBU testing is complete, we'll be choosing the new ANBU recruits and I will give you a new mission concerning the information you just handed to me."

I nodded. Somehow, even at his age, his mind was still sharp and able to organize everything quickly and immediately. He planned ahead with everything, never forgetting a single major or minor event that was to take place soon. I greatly admired him for that.

With a _shunshin_, I was back in my apartment, and after taking a shower and eating lunch, I immediately collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

…

"Kitsune-senpai, the seals you designed have been placed on all the masks, and those masks are all placed at the entrance to that section's exam. We set it up how you planned it, with a few minor changes to make it either more or less difficult, depending on what we thought of it."

The ex-ANBU I had spoken with before traveling to Wave rambled on about what they had already done while I absently created a clone to find Sasuke, and finally said, "Would you like to check over them all?"

I nodded. Of course I wanted to. Why else would I be here?

What I had designed was to have all the potential ANBU recruits take four extra exams: these four were what I had designed. Each tested one sense—as in, in one test, they'd only be able to rely on sight to complete the exam. Another allowed them to only rely on hearing, another on smell, and one on touch.

(Of course I hadn't designed one for them to only rely on taste. That would be completely ridiculous, seeing as how that sense is the one used simply for tasting food, and on occasion, if you wanted to test it on yourself and risk it, poisons—which would then ultimately defeat the purpose of the test, as in no real-life situation would an ANBU ever taste a poison to check if it was poisoned only to already be poisoned through that little taste of it.)

The tests were to see if they were aware of their surroundings, and used each and every one of their senses to help them in a mission and complete it with the utmost of their ability.

Of course, I didn't expect them to pass all the exams. In fact, they didn't necessarily have to pass any of these exams in order to make it into ANBU, but the point of these were to test and record their strengths and weaknesses—and possibly implement these masks in regular training, as well. It could increase each of their abilities and hopefully increase mission success.

"We set them all up in the forest. As you indicated on your plans, there is an adequately-sized open space for the potential ANBU recruit to battle an ex-ANBU with only the sense of hearing using genjutsu, taijutsu, or ninjutsu, and there is the area for the recruit to detect how many enemies are hidden within the forest as the sense-of-sight exam placed right next to it. They are to guess, judging on their stance, what they are carrying, how far they are, and how best to complete their 'mission' as easily as possible, correct?"

"Yes."

She nodded, contemplating something. I interrupted her thinking impatiently.

"Where are the other exams?"

"They're farther in the forest."

We continued walking on, onwards to the exam for sense of smell. The shinobi taking that exam would have to smell several different liquids, and drink the one that they thought was not poisonous. Medics would be nearby, ready to assist them if they drank the wrong one. Of course, the poisons weren't too deadly, as long as they were quickly cured.

Then it was the exam for the sense of touch. The ANBU recruit would have to detect the slightest changes of temperature or whatever else in the exam area, and figure out whether they were walking in the right areas or not. The fake situation was this:

They were on a mission to sneak into enemy territory, and they would have to first maneuver through the multiple traps the enemy had set up. They were sneaking through an entrance, where it was completely dark and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face even if it was a millimeter away. There were certain areas they could step in order to get through the entrance. If they stepped anywhere else, traps set up would go off, sending kunai at them. A trip wire gave off the slightest of vibrations in the air, and because of that, they could avoid those by staying hypersensitive to those slight vibrations. A large fan would act as the wind in order to create larger vibrations. And of course, staying in the center of the "corridor" would be warmest, while areas next to the "rocky walls of the corridor entrance" were cooler.

So maybe that was a very strange, ludicrous exam. Maybe that was something that would never happen to them—but it had happened to me, and it was only because of my sensitive sense of touch and hearing that allowed me to get through it alive.

She appeared impressed by the entirety of this extra tidbit I'd wanted to add, judging by the grudging respect she had in her voice when describing all the features that were set up and making sure with me that they were correct. I was slightly exhausted after trying them all out a little, and thanked her and headed out for lunch. I wanted to eat at a nice, high-class restaurant, so chose to keep on my ANBU outfit and henge. Although it was annoying to put on the manners and slow pace of eating, the food in those high-class restaurants were simply _amazing. _There were large varieties of all sorts of foods, and I always stuffed myself there. I felt like treating myself after having kept on my disguise for so long too, considering I was living with my entire team for weeks on end and having to hide the fact I was the ANBU—wait.

"…!"

Sakura knew! I wanted to scream. …Well, she didn't. She didn't have a definite answer yet. She couldn't be completely sure Naruto was the ANBU commander, because humans liked to doubt things they couldn't have ever imagined true. And Naruto, the stupid blond boy on her team, the ANBU commander? That was hard to believe.

Satisfied with making excuses to myself, I ambled along until I reached Konoha's Best Dining.

"Hello, welcome to Konoha's Best Dining! Is it just you, ANBU-dono?" The waitress flashed a bright smile.

"Yes, just me."

She guided me to a seat, where I could eat in peace. After ordering, the food came twenty minutes later, and I carefully cut the meat into small pieces, chewing thoughtfully whilst concentrating chakra into my taste buds.

_Mmm._ I closed my eyes in bliss. I normally didn't taste very exaggerated foods, and found the different flavors of chips or other snacks not much different at all. People found me strange for saying that, but it was only until I had my senses tested that I realized I had a degraded sense of taste. Maybe it was to make up for my other superior senses. Either way, with chakra concentrated on my taste buds, I could taste it as a normal person did. And it was, as I said, _amazing. _

The miniscule amounts of chakra in these diners were somewhat soothing, and I felt a little at peace until my senses picked up on a familiar chakra signature—Sakura's. I continued slouching in my seat, breathing slowly through my nose while chewing my food. Concentrating, my eyes flew open and immediately pinpointed on the rosette making her way to a table with her parents. I paid attention to their conversation, and realized her parents were letting her eat extravagantly today because she had had seafood for a couple weeks in Wave. They were treating her for her success, too, at completing a C-turned-A-ranked mission.

"Oh, and the ANBU commander saved my life," she said excitedly, and then had this wondering look on her face before her mother interrupted her.

"Your life was in danger?!"

The horrified look on her mother's face caused her to quickly amend her phrasing. "No, no; nothing like that! Kakashi-sensei and the ANBU commander were there, so it was completely safe."

Cue nervous giggle. Ha, what a liar. Of course, her parents were civilians, so I couldn't blame them for worrying. Regular jobs wouldn't put people in any danger of dying, and her parents probably hadn't expected her to get too far with it. And she wouldn't usually be in danger at her level anyway, as long as missions were categorized properly, without any lying on the customer's part.

The general lull of their conversation as it paused and started up again when the food came and went was, to say the least, boring—at least to me, and I stopped concentrating on their conversation after a while, finding nothing of importance from her. She was most likely not going to cause me any trouble.

"ANBU-senpai! Hey, ANBU-senpai!"

I sighed. I should have "knocked on wood" as I said that.

"Hello, Haruno-san," I smiled politely at her and stood up, chewing up the last traces of food left in my mouth and swallowing before offering my hand to shake to her parents. The average man and woman appeared quite surprised, taking in my small stature—smaller than even their own 12 year old daughter—and wondering how I could possibly be an ANBU. Much less the ANBU commander.

"Ah, hello, uh…" Her mother offered, trailing off as she wasn't sure what to call me.

"You may call me ANBU-san, or Kitsune-san," I inclined my head to be polite.

"Hello, Kitsune-san," her father was still shaking my hand, his hands papery and weak. He finally let go, and waited for a moment.

I rolled my eyes internally. "Would you like to sit?"

They nodded their thanks and sat, staring intently at me for a little. Sakura squirmed.

"So, uh, Kitsune-senpai, thank you for saving me," the genin said with bright green eyes sparkling, a hint of suspicion visible.

"No need to thank me."

"So how long have you been an ANBU member?" the slightly pudgy woman asked me.

I thought back. Technically speaking, I wasn't truly a part of ANBU to go so far as to be working ANBU missions until I was nine. I had always trained with ANBU ever since I was five, though, so…

"I suppose you could say three years."

Her eyes widened, interested. "How old are you then?"

"Twelve."

She gasped. "You're the same age as our Sakura-chan, then!"

"Mom!" the girl sitting across from me protested. "Don't call me that!"

"Sorry honey," she said absently, then turned back to me. "How in the world did you possibly start that early? Are you a child genius or something?"

I honestly hadn't thought civilians were quite this…dull, to put it kindly. If I was a professional killer at nine, having received training as a shinobi for only four years before that, would I not be considered a child genius? Especially since most came into ANBU at the age of 20, 25?

I shrugged instead. "I'm an orphan—I can request things without needing parent permission, so I requested to have a private instructor when I was five, funding it with my orphan savings. I suppose I learned quickly."

A complete lie made up on the spot seemed to satisfy her and her eyes turned sympathetic, her voice crooning, "Oh, you poor baby…"

Oh, ew. I did not want to hear that directed at me again. Sakura seemed to be mimicking her mother in less vocal actions, bottle green eyes filled with sympathy. I decided I didn't want to be a part of this anymore, my meal no longer as appealing, and scarfed it down, wiping my mouth with a napkin and standing up. The Haruno family blinked, having missed the moment when I had speedily grabbed my food with my chopsticks, chewed it and swallowed in a matter of seconds.

"Oh—oh my, what—"

I bowed. "I must be going now; I have a couple duties I must attend to. As for you, Haruno-san, I would like to say this: You are certainly a talented girl, but you have neither muscle nor bravery for action-filled missions. I'd advise you to be careful.

"I don't think you should continue...er, what I mean to say is, I can tell you are adamant about pursuing the life of a kunoichi, although—er, even if it appears at first you are only a frivolous little girl—"

Sakura and her parents balked indignantly at that while I furiously smacked myself internally for a completely separate thing.

"—I'd like to recommend looking into the medical aspects of the shinobi arts. I think you would like that, although it requires a lot of work."

I had been about to restrict her choices. _I _of all people had been about to do that. That disgusted me to the point of curling my fingers in anger at myself.

I discovered certain aspects about being an Akasenko: Akasenko were never welcome, never wanted no matter where they went, and people saw them as dirt on their shoes—some little thief that would never amount to anything. I was seen as a beggar not worth anyone's time, and I was restricted—my choices were to either become a drug dealer or die a painful death.

Those restrictions hadn't stopped me, but they'd hindered my path. I was desperate for something, anything to change my lifestyle, and that something appeared right before me—the profession of a shinobi. It was why I chose it so readily: why I didn't hesitate to throw myself into learning the jutsu, the harsh physical and mental training, everything related to the arts of a shinobi.

I'd been about to tell Sakura that I didn't think she should become a shinobi, but then suddenly remembered what I'd hated. I'd hated people either outright saying it in disgust or giving those _looks _at me, expressing their assumption that I would never become part of proper society. If I told Sakura she couldn't become a kunoichi, how infuriating would that have been if I'd been her?

So, no. I wasn't about to restrict her choices.

"I'll take my leave now. Have a wonderful day."

I laid the money necessary on the table with a generous tip, carefully tucking it underneath a dirty plate. Then, I _shunshined _out of the restaurant, leaving the Haruno family a little dazed and confused.

…

**I know the ending's weird. And the whole restaurant-dining thing is weird, too. I honestly have no idea why I wrote it, but it happened and it's here. Not going to remove such a large chunk out of my story when it has some important stuff, too. **

**Please review!**

**~paracuties (anyone have suggestions, btw? For a different pen name? 'Cause my name in AO3 is Shadowlight, but it's apparently already taken here in FF. net…)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello, hello, my wonderful readers! I'm back! It's Fall Break for me, so I finally had time to write fanfiction, but then I slept and was writing other stuff, and…yeah. **

**Thank you to all who followed, favorited, and reviewed! Enjoy the chapter. **

…

"Hokage-sama. The exams are to be held tomorrow; what am I to tell my…partners?"

It was early morning, and the Sandaime leaned back thoughtfully, pipe in hand and a sliver of sunshine hitting his desk. Because other ANBU were silently standing guard around the room in various locations, I could only talk to him in code. It wasn't really a code—only something I had come up with that moment, but no one else would understand if they didn't know of my situation.

"You could, of course, always leave a clone, but you have said Pink has a tendency towards violence?"

I nodded. "However, I regret to say that Pink has a suspicion. I do not want to further that suspicion if my double avoids engagement of violence. That said, I did create another safety measure in order to relieve some of my doubles' fears, but...it is better to be safe than sorry, I think."

"Ah." He stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "Then a double will have to suffice for our exams. As long as you receive the information from your double, we can discuss the possible recruits later on. I'll make sure to allow him to bypass security measures. I will be there to watch, after all."

I bowed. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

The door opened, and the Sandaime turned away. It was all the dismissal I needed, and I whisked out the window just in time to see Team 8 led by Yuuhi Kurenai step inside to stare at me leaping away, startled. They sure started their day early.

It was time to meet with Sasuke for our regular morning training, anyway. Pulling on Naruto's regular bright orange outfit, I _shunshined _to a location just a couple meters from our meeting spot on the bridge, and watched Sakura and Sasuke leaning against the railing quietly, occasionally talking but then falling into a peaceful silence. Strange how open Sasuke was being these days. I didn't know if Naruto was helping with that, or simply being on Team 7 encouraged him to open up. Either way, I was happy. My mission was going well.

"Yo, Sasuke! You ready for me to beat you up today?" I shouted across to them, bounding forward and grinning furiously.

"Tch." He rolled his eyes. "That's never going to happen."

I snickered inwardly.

"Yeah-huh! It so is! You just wait; I'll be Hokage someday!"

Sakura groaned. "Not that again; I thought you were done with that dream of yours!"

I adopted a hurt look. "No way! I'll be Hokage someday and I can laugh in your face and say you were wrong!"

Sasuke decided to attack me in my distraction. A foot planted itself firmly in my back, and I flipped head over heels into the water below the bridge. Of course, that was my clone. Since Sasuke suspected me of having hidden my true talents during the Academy, I decided to implement just a small amount of intelligence in Naruto. At the very least, he could come up with simple battle strategies at a moment's notice. Because of this, I was clinging to the bottom of the bridge, and when Sasuke jumped down to ready himself against my attack from the water, I instead shouted, "Wind Slash Jutsu!"

Mild, at least for me, attacks from the wind raced towards Sasuke, and he, sensing the danger coming from above, rolled away and ducked. It sliced a bit of his hair off, and he scowled at me, still clinging to the bottom of the bridge with chakra.

"I thought we were sticking to taijutsu!" he shouted at me angrily, and I shrugged.

"Okay, then," I smirked and launched a kick at his face. He had plenty of time to block with his forearms, but I suddenly retracted my foot midair and turned, attempting to land my fist into his stomach. His elbow blocked it partially, and I admired his quick reflexes for a genin before starting a haymaker, a front kick up his chin, and a right hook—all of which he blocked or avoided with even and rhythmic movements. I stepped back, sliding into a stance. He started his attack, blowing past my purposely-left-open holes in my guard as a way to get me to adjust my position through experience. Naruto improved a miniscule amount by the time Kakashi arrived, where the three of us were slumped against the bridge. Sakura, meanwhile, seemed to have stopped suspecting me of being ANBU. I sported quickly-fading black eyes and mottled purple bruises on my forearms, all of which she seemed to think no one would willingly take just for the sake of pretending to be someone else.

Although I wasn't pretending. I was most definitely Naruto. I was only pretending to have led a different lifestyle. And of course, I knew I would have to keep a strict watch for any slip-ups—one more and she'd know. For sure, this time. I hoped to dispel her current suspicions through strict attention to my own actions, for now.

"My cute little genin! How was your break day?"

Sasuke didn't deign his question worthy of an answer. Kakashi apparently didn't deserve much respect if he wasn't going to arrive on time.

I perked up, though. "It was awesome! I spent the day training with Sasuke, and then we went and found Sakura and bought tomatoes!"

At least my clone had. Sasuke glared at me, as if I was supposed to keep that a secret from our instructor.

Based on the memories of my clone, Sakura had exited the restaurant with her parents, where she met up the recently-showered Clone Naruto and Sasuke, the two of which had previously been sparring, the clone thankfully not disappearing from too hard hits because of my solidity seal. The three of them decided to go to the market together, Sakura waving goodbye to her slightly-disappointed parents and joining up with her tired teammates searching for a good snack. Sasuke had won two of the last three quick spars, so instead of ramen, they were eating tomatoes sprinkled with sugar.

Sakura and Clone Naruto discussed Sakura's recent meeting with the mysterious ANBU or, as she had recently found, Kitsune, as she was attempting to see if Naruto showed any guilt or recognition, while Sasuke bought his tomatoes and listened in on their conversation as well. Then, they traveled together back to the Uchiha Compound where Sasuke had first reluctantly allowed Naruto inside and then acquiesced to having both his teammates inside his home while he chopped the tomatoes up and sprinkled sugar on them while preparing delicious turkey sandwiches.

Clone Naruto had "accidentally" forgotten to eat his sandwich, too busy talking, so in the end when Sakura and Naruto needed to leave and Clone Naruto looked down to see his uneaten sandwich, he had handed it to Sasuke and said he was fine. He had stuff at home to eat. Sasuke had looked at him strangely for that.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised that our team was actually bonding. We had been quite rough around the edges for a couple months, constantly arguing and at odds with each other until sometime before the Wave mission he noticed me and Sasuke getting closer, and eventually bringing Sakura into our friendship after the Wave mission.

"Alright, team! I thought we needed a little rest after our C-turned-A rank mission, so today we don't have anything but training. Aren't you pleased?"

Sakura and I groaned. "Come on, Kakashi-sensei, _please, _we'd love to do a couple D-rank missions," she whined, hoping to escape the brutal training we'd come to recognize as what Kakashi did on no-mission days.

He tsked. "Nope. The Wave mission shows that although you are all on par with normal genin teams, perhaps even more advanced, you three are not at all prepared to deal with becoming a chuunin. There was still not enough teamwork, since you two, Sasuke and Naruto, allowed Sakura to wander off by herself. And then you, Sakura, did not follow a higher-up's orders."

We avoided our instructor's gaze. A long lecture had already been given at Wave, but even now, we—or at least Sakura and Sasuke—knew this would be a lesson hard-learned. Teamwork was difficult amongst the three of us; we were all almost complete opposites of each other—if it was even possible for three people to be opposites.

"So! Follow me, and we can begin and end our training session as soon as possible."

Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves, and we began our first part—tracking. None of Team 7's genin had any real tracking abilities, so we were left to figure out how far each training ground was from our current location and check the ones one _shunshin _away.

"Naruto," Sakura ventured. "Do you think you could…er, smell his trail again?"

Sasuke turned his attention to me as well.

"I…I, uh…yeah, sure! I can do that!"

The uncertainty in the beginning was from me trying to remember if I had tracked something before with my sense of smell in front of my genin team—Sakura wasn't trying to trick me into revealing my true status, was she? I didn't doubt her intelligence.

However, she wasn't. Trying to trick me, that is. Thank God. I tuned out everything else and closed my eyes, focusing on my nose yet deciding not to focus any chakra to it. I always could smell the dirt floating in the air in the markets, from horse-drawn wagons blowing past long-worn dirt paths. The paper-and-ink smell was always prominent in the Hokage's office. Grass freshly-mown could be smelled from a mile away. The point was, my sense of smell was accelerated enough that I did not need to focus chakra to it. I only needed to focus my mind.

Kakashi always had an eggplant-y, warm and slightly iron-like smell about him. The scent of iron was probably from the frequent assassinations—where blood covered you from head to toe far too often, although he _had _quit the job of an ANBU a while ago…in any case, his scent was there. I followed it, my feet deftly guiding me off the bridge and into the forest, eyes still closed. A map of Konoha was practically imprinted on my mind, down to the last stray pebble.

My genin teammates followed along quietly, hoping they'd find something that would help us get there faster. The later we arrived, the harsher our training was. It was relaxing enough for me though, thankfully. I had enough on my plate as it was—what with the ANBU exams, Orochimaru's future invasion and plans to counter that, my as-of-currently six-year mission on Sasuke, and, of course, the disguise as a genin. Which was technically still part of my save-Sasuke mission.

_Focus. _

I slowly followed it, knowing I couldn't appear to be an expert at this. At times, I purposefully went down the wrong path only to double back as I "realized my mistake". Sasuke, once we reached the forest, noticed bent branches heading in a specific direction, purposely left behind by Kakashi, and took over from there. By the time we finally found Kakashi, unfortunately in a much farther training field than we had expected, an hour had passed—and simply from trying to track him.

Kakashi was sitting underneath a tree reading his book, but hopped up the moment we arrived, sweaty from the hot sun rising up in the sky.

"Twenty laps around the lake!"

This particular training ground contained a clear, void-of-life pond, deep enough to simulate a real one. It was especially handy for shinobi with water-natured chakra to practice their jutsu here, as I had done at times—Uzumaki Kushina had been water-natured, after all. It was my secondary chakra, along with fire because of the Kyuubi. I tended to avoid fire jutsu, since it would likely react with the Kyuubi and cause more trouble for me.

"You're slacking!"

The silver-haired jounin was suddenly standing on the water, drenching us with a splash of water from the like, utilizing—

"Water Projectile Jutsu!"

A splash of water hit me straight on and I exaggeratedly staggered around before angrily shouting, "Hey! That's not fair!"

"How's it not fair?"

He prepared to start the jutsu again, and I picked up my pace, also huffing and puffing exaggeratedly. Hopefully, Kakashi would not notice. Lately, I had been sensing suspicious glances occasionally directed at me—and I thought it had been Sakura. But then she stopped suspecting me of crazy notions, and I could still sense that suspicion, floating in the air like poison.

_Look underneath the underneath—_Kakashi's phrase repeated itself to me again and again. He was the master of deception, and the master of looking underneath layers and layers of deception under deception. What could I have expected? I wasn't going to fool him for long; I hadn't expected that. And it would make it easier, too. But then...he'd once told me he felt guilty for not taking care of his Sensei's son. The Fourth's son, Uzumaki Naruto. All he could do was guard him—or so he thought.

If I told him Kitsune was Naruto and Naruto was Kitsune, the guilt would probably only deepen, spurred on by the fact that, again, he hadn't paid enough attention. I could read him like that. And since I didn't want that to happen, I wouldn't tell him—not until it was completely necessary.

_Sploosh—_Kakashi's chakra-infused water hit me face-on, again. Being lost in my thoughts did not help my speed.

"Stop that, Kakashi-sensei!" I yelled angrily at him. He only gave me a thumbs-up as I increased my speed.

I watched as Kakashi sent a blast of water towards Sasuke, who noticed it before it reached him and was able to dodge the majority of the unnatural stream of water. He mostly left Sakura alone, noticing the exhaustion present on her face as she struggled to keep up with her teammates. She was probably trying harder than any of us, yet she was still falling behind. I hoped she would take Kitsune up on the suggestion of becoming a medic-nin.

Ah, that sounded strange. Referring to my "Naruto" identity happened often enough in my own mind, but I was more often than not identifying myself as Kitsune, anyway. I thought of myself as Kitsune pretending to be Naruto, and not as Naruto pretending to be Kitsune. What had happened now? Had I fallen into the role of Naruto so deeply that I thought I was _the _Naruto? The happy, bubbly and carefree Kyuubi orphan? Was that why, when I thought of who had given the suggestion to Sakura, I had felt like Naruto was looking upon his identity as ANBU commander to be a separate entity?

That thought scared me, somewhat. What had changed?

"Naruto!" I jerked as I realized I'd been slowing down _again_, but thankfully, this time it was to slow down and gather at the banks. Unfortunately, it was also to bend down and start doing push-ups, curl-ups, and sit-ups. Stretching came soon afterward, and we were set to sparring again. However, this time it was Sakura against Sasuke and I against Kakashi; usually I was pitted against Sasuke in a, in simple terms, bar-fight brawl, and Sakura against Kakashi as he pointed out what she was doing right and what she was doing wrong.

"Kakashi-sensei, what's up with the change?" I complained.

He shrugged. "I think your taijutsu needs improving. You spar enough with Sasuke, anyway, that you guys know each other's attacks before it's completed. I'm just spicing things up a bit."

He was probably referring to the various exercises Sasuke and I had performed before Kakashi arrived. This, of course, didn't make it any more appealing. It was hard to hide my skills in front of Kakashi when all I wanted to do was go all-out—which I often did before when we were on the same ANBU team, in fact. And Kakashi had probably the most detail-oriented eyes possible in Konoha, considering he wasn't an Uchiha. Even with one eye, he seemed to take in more of his surroundings than the majority of ANBU. And, well, when the Sharingan was uncovered, our enemies stood no chance. This time, I was his "enemy". He'd be paying a lot of unwanted attention to my movements and form.

Without warning, I leaped forward at him, kunai in hand. A string of shuriken leaped forward and I jumped up, awkwardly maneuvering myself in the air to avoid the second swing from the same string of shuriken whistling through the air. My kunai went awry as I purposely tossed it while at an awkward angle, and then I landed on the ground and leaped into the trees. For a moment, I noticed the small figures of Sasuke and Sakura pushing against each other, bright pink against raven black. Then Kakashi was onto me again, unrelenting. Sloppy dodges saved me in the nick of time, although I did endure a couple painful cuts on my forearms as I blocked with my bare arms, "unable" to pull a kunai out of my pouch in time.

"Wait!" I protested. "Kakashi-sensei, this isn't fair!"

"In a fight everything goes," he said gruffly.

"But this is a spar, not a fight!"

His kunai clanged with mine, and he stared into my eyes. "I'm testing you."

_Oookay. Wasn't that a little weird._

Although I did wonder if he meant he was onto my disguise. Hm. The thought still sent spikes of fear rushing through my veins, but I resigned myself to the fact that my identity would be revealed sooner or later, and I'd let time take over, this time. Ha. _Time _take over, this _time…_

_I'm seriously done with making bad jokes to myself_, I decided.

A shuriken scraped open my shin. I yelped, stumbling and slipping off my tree branch, catching myself before I fell with a hand on a rough branch, thick callouses preventing any injuries from forming on my palm.

"Yo, Kakashi-sensei! That was mean!"

He didn't answer, and I threw myself up again, utilizing wild amounts of chakra and purposely wasting it as I crouched and shot up onto a branch above Kakashi's. With a yell, I threw myself straight at him again, but this time, as he dodged, I hung onto his arm—and then yanked_. _Obviously, he was thrown off balance, but just for a moment. The moment was what I needed to slap a paper bomb onto his vest, which he escaped by throwing off his vest and then using _Kawarimi _to escape farther away.

Nonetheless, even though my paper bomb had just been wasted, Kakashi returned holding up a "pause" sign to indicate our spar was put on hold for a moment for him to speak.

"That was pretty good, Naruto," he commented. "I'm surprised by your sudden tactics. Number One Most Unpredictable Ninja, huh?"

"Yep," I pointed a thumb at myself proudly, "That's me."

And in a flash, dozens of kunai and shuriken came flying at me—I _Kawarimi_'d, only to find more weapons flying at me, sharpened points glinting dangerously—I _Kawarimi_'d again, finding the weapons flying too close for comfort and was forced to deflect all of them with a kunai, my eyes suddenly on high alert and darting around, watching for danger. The relentless throwing of dangerous weapons stopped, and I took a breath. Now _that _was _fast. _And…that was definitely not something a genin could do. No regular genin could switch that quickly and avoid all those weapons that easily. Not an act a chuunin or even a tokubetsu jounin could perform, necessarily.

"Naruto," Kakashi said in a warning tone. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Eh?" I faked obliviousness. Kakashi obviously didn't like that, as he zipped forward and suddenly stared down at my face, eyes stony.

"I know you're neither an enemy-nin nor any random shinobi pretending to be Naruto, because your chakra is still the same. However, the Naruto described in the Academy records and the Naruto you seem to want to be…isn't you. You're far more talented, more talented than many; a genius, maybe. I've seen you come up with strangely ingenious plans, and they don't fit the personality you show. There's something wrong—and I don't want any lies."

Well, at least he wasn't thinking I was his previous ANBU captain. When I said he'd find out eventually, I hadn't been expecting him to find out I was the Red Slash _now. _But then, did I really need to keep hiding this from him? Wouldn't it be better to let him know and make my mission easier, make everything overall easier?

I debated internally for a couple seconds, and the look on my face must've showed it was something serious as he sighed and said, "I may be jumping to conclusions; I may be imagining you to be part of—something. But if it's anything really serious, let me know, okay? I'm…a little worried."

I wanted to tease him. Kakashi, worried? But he was serious, and I was sure he wouldn't appreciate any joking of some sort at this moment.

"Er, Kakashi-sensei," I sighed. "So, yeah, I may not be the Uzumaki Naruto you all know and hate. But it's nothing really all that serious, okay? And please don't tell Sakura or Sasuke. I'll explain things…just maybe not during a training session."

The man's rigid posture instantly relaxed. At least, he appeared to have relaxed. Kakashi was a master of laidback attitude smoothed over tense, jumbled emotions, so who knew what he was really thinking?

Smirking again, I jumped back and hollered, "Are we going to spar or not?"

As he zipped towards me and I darted out of his reach again, I pondered what he'd said to me. _"I may be imagining you to be part of—something." _Did that mean he thought I was…Root? That was strange, but not unexpected. However, it could cause problems later on—in that although it would keep him from realizing my real identity, he'd be keeping far closer tabs on me than if he knew the truth. _Why _couldn't I just tell him the truth?

_Because you're scared, idiot, _a little voice said, and I couldn't help but snarl at it. _I'm not scared. Why would I be?_

'_Cause you've finally found your cute little family, in Team 7, and when your identity is revealed—_

"You shut up," I muttered to myself, this time out loud, and it stayed silent. Great. I was conversing with myself, just like back in the old days, muttering to myself in the sewers to keep myself company.

Forcing myself to focus on the spar with Kakashi, my movements became less efficient and less smooth, giving myself Naruto's abilities once more. The spar ended soon after, as Kakashi seemed to have gotten what he wanted out of it, and we returned to Sakura and Sasuke, where she lay on the grass, breathing hard, appearing as if she couldn't care less about her appearance at the moment.

"Whoa, Sakura, you stink," I teased, wrinkling my nose and backing away from her. In a moment, she'd hobbled to her feet and come after me with another punch. I evaded it, this time, and she pulled her lips into a tight little frown before rolling her eyes and lying back down once more.

"It's not like you aren't the same," she returned without any real bite, and Sasuke snickered.

"What, teme? You got something against people that don't smell like roses and perfume like you?"

We descended into bickering, and Kakashi sighed before ending our training session.

"See ya later, Kakashi-sensei!" I called, and he seemed to realize what I meant. I'd meet up with him somewhere else, and I could explain my situation. I definitely wasn't part of Root, for sure.

Through a _shunshin_, I arrived at the window of my apartment, quickly disabling all the traps and locks and darting in through the window. I shed Naruto's outfit, leaving it lying on the bed, before fitting on Kitsune's mask I'd unsealed from a small mark on my nightstand. It was easily accessible, and still easily hidden, keeping these sorts of evidence hidden from suspicious, nosy people that enjoyed poking through my apartment when I wasn't there. Namely, Iruka, before, and Kakashi at times.

As I returned to our training ground, I waited for my genin team sensei to notice. The plume of silver hair had just started to turn when an ANBU I recognized as part of the investigation squad appeared. He swiftly bowed and then notified me of their discoveries. Since I hadn't heard from them in a while, I'd planned to visit at one point—only I'd gotten so caught up in Team 7's business that, to my shame at realizing this, I'd forgotten. Cursing at my own forgetfulness, I vanished from the training area, resigned to the fact that Kakashi would figure it out by now. He'd caught sight of me standing there, waiting, after all, and he wasn't a genius for nothing.

…

**Hey, I'm wondering if those who follow and/or favorite actually read this story. Could you leave a review of **_**anything**_**, even "hi", just to let me know you're there? I'm curious to see if people who followed in the beginning are still reading the story. Thanks!**

**And feel free to leave a review of more than just "hi", of course. I love reviews. As long as they're relevant, that is. Thanks, guys!**

**~paracuties (keltieful said not to change, so thank you for the few suggestions I received, but I'm probably not going to change it. It's going confuse readers too, if they see some random name they weren't informed of, anyway.)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Okayyy so I didn't think it would take me **_**this**_** long to update. And I'm really, really sorry! Junior year is just really, really tough! Cut me some slack, guys…**

**I still want to thank those who are still following this story, as well as newcomers to my story who have followed and favorited and reviewed. I really enjoy your reviews!**

**So, chapter ten. It's here. Enjoy.**

…

"Investigation squad, why wasn't I notified of this earlier?" I barked at them, seething. They bowed their heads at me in deference.

"Kitsune-senpai, you were nowhere to be found until just recently. The fact that we initially mistook the fatal wound to be a chakra blade is unsettling—we will conduct better-quality autopsies from here."

I shook my head. "Never mind that—explain to me why this mistake occurred."

They then proceeded to say that when they'd first performed the autopsy, they focused on the heart—the commander had been seen grimacing and pressing a hand to his heart when he collapsed, right there in front of all the ANBU.

It was obvious, then, that they focused on the heart. The heart was slashed up to cause almost immediate death, but the ANBU commander had been fast enough to at least alert his subordinates. Chakra scalpels were also not a commonly known technique except in the shinobi medical community, so it was concluded that a medic-nin was the culprit.

With that discovery, they decided the chakra scalpel was the cause of death—and sure, alcohol was discovered in the bloodstream, but all shinobi drank now and then, and the ANBU commander had been a heavier drinker than most, even though his performance had never shown any discrepancies caused by too much intake of alcohol. That had then been reported to me, and most went on to interview the medic-nin at the shinobi hospital.

However, some found it a little too easy. The assassin shouldn't have been that messy with such an important individual as his target, right? And it didn't explain how the commander hadn't been able to fight off a single medic-nin…unless multiple medic-nin were "in on it."

The interviews having not been very conclusive (although they had a few suspicions about some medic-nin), and without me, the commander, there to give any further instruction, the investigation squad conducted another autopsy on the previous commander, this time choosing to focus on the organs. There had been no outward injuries, and although the cause of death could still have been the chakra scalpel, there was more to it. Further search discovered two different foreign liquids in the stomach and bloodstream. With a few of the most trusted medic-nin, the investigation squad identified the two liquids: one that acted as a poison to shut down the transportation of hormones from the brain's pituitary gland, and another that slowed and stunted an individual's ability to physically react quickly.

The ANBU were then suspicious of the alcohol having played some part in this. They traveled to a couple of the bars, interviewed many, and finally found that the commander had chosen to drink at a civilian bar under a simple henge. Apparently he hadn't wanted to be bothered that evening. Only the Hokage, surveying the village through his crystal ball at six pm, had seen him put on a henge of a muscular, green-eyed and blonde-haired man and then enter the bar called "Down the Hatch."

There, the bartender was interviewed as well. He couldn't quite remember anything—he had many customers, proudly stated by the bartender, too many to keep track of—except for a "gray-haired guy chattin' away with that buff dude you guys just described. Didn' know if he was gay or somethin'."

By this point, the cause of death had been pinpointed to be the poison that shut down the transportation of hormones—an important function that kept the body stabilized and functioning. The ANBU describing their investigation process did not go into the details of that, which I was thankful for—medical stuff was not my thing.

Now, it was these poisons that the investigation squad searched for. They searched the ANBU that were known to use these poisons, the small medical branch that also worked with poisons, as well as members of the investigation squad itself. This caused quite a bit of suspicion stirred up among the squad, but it was eventually resolved. It was assumed that these substances were slipped into the commander's drink when he wasn't watching—first, the non-scented substance that caused the targeted individual to react slowly, think a little slowly, and then the poison. The assassin would have to be very talented for that.

I nodded to them as acknowledgment I understood their explanation, and they bowed before leaving. I mused over this as I left the room as well. Who was this mysterious medic-nin?

Most medics were very busy. Their schedules were usually full, and they often did not have the time to waste to leisurely spend their evenings drinking. Shinobi were different—they could, in fact, choose how many missions they went on over a certain period of time. (As long as it wasn't wartime, of course. Wartime meant stricter schedules for everyone involved.) Their salary depended on which missions they took. Medic-nin, however, had a set schedule, and the day medics' shifts ended at exactly six pm while the night medics' shifts started at precisely six pm as well.

Apparently the Sandaime had said the previous commander entered the bar at six pm. This, in theory, meant any day medic-nin could be the culprit, since their shift ended at that time. However, that meant that the bar would need to be directly beside the hospital in order for the medic-nin to see the ANBU commander put on the henge and enter the bar, and proceed to follow him inside and shortly thereafter poison him.

The bar was on the other side of Konoha. Either the medic-nin was a foreigner, or a trainee with an erratic schedule, or someone who had access to the medical supplies and had medical abilities but did not openly display them. I would investigate it all, starting with the easiest: the trainees.

There were plenty of these trainees, but most did not progress up too high in the medical food chain. Generally, they became regular nurses who worked with big-wig medic-nin, and that meant they would not have access to these poisons. They would, however, have knowledge of where it was located, and it was easy enough to access the room containing the more dangerous supplies. Although dangerous, these supplies were needed regularly enough, and therefore too much security would only result in unnecessary delays.

With a quick step forward, I performed a _shunshin_ and arrived at the entrance of the hospital, where doors were opening and closing as patients left and injured people entered, carried by harried-looking nurses. I strode forward, swiftly sliding the mask up and onto my hair, knowing the henge-holding seal I had stuck on my chest was activated and therefore I needn't worry about any of the medics denying any of my requests.

I headed to the front desk, where one young woman quickly turned to me, smiled prettily, and asked, "How may I help you, Commander-sama?"

"I'd like to see the profiles of all the trainees currently working at this hospital."

"Please insert a small amount of chakra into the verifier, then!"

I placed a hand on the slightly-glowing screen, and, as usual, separated the Kyuubi chakra from my own natural chakra before pushing in a bit of only my natural chakra.

"That's plenty," she chuckled, and waited for the chakra verifier to finish processing it and identify to whom the chakra belonged. I was sure my grey eyes, dark hair, and pale skin showed up, listed under the name Kitsune, as she glanced at me and nodded before bending down and rifling through the large row of folders in the drawer behind the desk.

I peered at her nametag. As she finally stood up and handed me a thin manila folder, I said, "Thank you, Rika-san."

She blinked, brown eyes wide. "No problem!"

I took the folder and quickly sat myself down in a hard, plastic chair in the waiting room, where worried family members or team members stood or sat, frowns and wrinkled foreheads and even tears on their faces. Then, with a quick flick, the cover opened and I glanced down at the first individual: Aki Rido. His profile consisted of a short list of his physical features, as well as a description of his accomplishments and aspirations, and reason for volunteering or working for the hospital. He had brown hair, however. It was possible the trainee had a henge on, but large amounts of chakra were required to keep a henge realistic for a long period of time; it would be logical, and I admit, easier, to limit my suspects (for now, at least) to gray-haired individuals.

I flipped through all of them, counting 81 in total. There were exactly six gray-haired individuals—three of whom were male. I had my list of suspects, and I memorized their names and appearances as well as general information before handing the file back to Rika.

"Could I have Ito Gen's, Sadaki Raimaru's, and Yakushi Kabuto's schedules?"

She nodded with a quick smile again, knowing full well I had the authorization to request this sort of information. Her expression was uncertain, though, as she handed those more-detailed files to me.

"They're all good kids," she added, brow wrinkling slightly. "I'm sure they wouldn't have done anything."

"We'll see," I said with a shrug. "Thanks."

Again, I flipped through these files, seated on my hard, plastic chair. Their schedules were erratic, for sure, and it just so happened that all of them did not have any volunteering scheduled during six pm.

"Tch," I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I'd have to investigate all three of them, then. First on the list was Ito Gen. I remembered his profile said he lived in the middle-class district, and only his father was a shinobi. His mother kept an apple orchard, and sold apples for a living. The next day, early in the morning, I sent a clone to my genin team meeting spot before locating the middle district and running towards it. It was the largest district in Konoha, but I had a vague notion of where Ito Gen's house was in the jumble of apartments and houses. After a couple minutes, I leaped down into the street, startling a couple civilians as I quickly strode into the bustling crowd, pulling another _henge_ over my already-_henged_ appearance.

Now, I was an unremarkable dark-eyed, brown-haired, middle-aged man. I held a clipboard with papers inked with charts and writing, and wore slightly formal clothing. Briskly striding up to an apartment, I stepped inside, notified the front desk that I was ANBU undercover and therefore they should not bother me and instead go along with what I was doing, and then rode the elevator up to the third floor. The Ito family lived on this floor, along with two other families.

As I rang their doorbell, I formulated a brief plan. I'd introduce myself as Susumu, part of building maintenance. The room below them had mentioned to the front desk that cracks kept forming in the ceiling, and there were leaks in some certain areas—but they didn't specify where. I'd have to check every single room because of that. Meanwhile, I would take special care in observing Gen's room.

Gen's mother opened the door, and after I informed her of what I was doing, she allowed me inside and offered to show me where all the bathrooms and sinks were. I politely declined, of course.

After scouring the rooms and noting details, I had found nothing suspicious. Nothing smelled like the samples of those poisons I'd briefly checked when the ANBU were giving me their report (one benefit from the Kyuubi that saved me time—I didn't have to go get an Inuzuka), and I found no hiding spots that Ito Gen could've used to hide the stolen poisons. With a brief nod to his mother, I left and continued investigating the other two suspects. It was only when I reached Yakushi Kabuto that something alerted me. He was the adopted son of a head of the Konoha Medic Corps, Yakushi Nonō; he'd taken the genin exam six times and failed the genin exam six times; and he'd been born in an enemy village: aspects that all immediately drew my suspicion.

Further investigation led me to the discovery that he hid his talents—I kept a constant vigil over him throughout the day, and at one point, he visited the training grounds, where he, after casting several genjutsu meant to hide himself from any passersby, displayed the abilities of a tokubetsu jounin.

Suspicion rising, I sent a clone to call for several ANBU. Once they arrived, I brief them on what I'd found, and ordered them to watch Yakushi for now. They were also to report anything else that might be of interest. Meanwhile, I entered his apartment with caution, searching, again, for the poisons.

And this time, I found them.

The scent was barely there—he was good at hiding things, but not good enough to hide from the nose of…well, the Kyuubi. I couldn't find the poisons themselves, and I assumed he'd long gotten rid of physical evidence. But he was a trainee. He would never have been given access to these poisons, which meant he'd stolen them. The gray-haired shinobi was listed as a genin, but he was of chuunin or jounin level. All the evidence pointed straight to my conclusion—Yakushi Kabuto was the previous commander's murderer.

I felt vindictive. I'd found my commander's murderer, and justice would be brought. But first, I had to report to the Sandaime. Finishing my search, I leaped across the buildings—

"Konohamaru!"

My…clone. And Sakura. And Konohamaru and his little gang. I was curious, but I wasn't going to be detained; I would receive the memories from my clone later on anyway.

"I'll teach you a lesson or two, little punk," a foreign voice growled.

Startled, I stopped on the roof nearby, and put my hand on the tiles. A moment later, my breath caught. _A jinchuuriki was here._ Two other chakra signatures I didn't recognize were below, and peering over the edge of the roof, I could tell that they were Suna-nin. One of them was grabbing the front of Konohamaru's shirt, and I scoffed at the display of pride in bullying a young child.

So the jinchuuriki was from Suna, since he or she stood nearby, presumably waiting for his two teammates to finish. That meant the Ichibi was here.

The Fox reacted, and I ruthlessly squashed it down, feeling cold sweat break out on my neck. I couldn't keep suppressing the Kyuubi with one of its kin so close by. The Suna jinchuuriki seemed to feel the same thing, since suddenly, he was looking straight towards me. Shit. I couldn't have him do anything to indicate he recognized me as a fellow jinchuuriki.

But then Sasuke was arriving. And there were three shinobi with music notes on the headbands. Sasuke seemed intent on diffusing the situation, and those three shinobi…must be from Otogakure, the village Orochimaru had mentioned in the notes I'd found. No other village had "music" or anything along the lines of "sound" or "hearing" in its name.

All of this raced through my head in a mere second before I leaped down anyway, disregarding the fact that Sasuke was coming. Knowing him, he'd try to do something ostentatious that could possibly rile up the Suna-nin even more, and I would prefer to interrupt the fight before it escalated to that point.

Furthermore, they were harming the Sandaime's grandson. It was my duty, especially as an ANBU member, to protect the Hokage and his family.

Killing intent leaked out. The genin with purple face paint paused mid-sneer, glancing over at me with slight caution. His teammate, blond hair pulled into four pigtails, looked a little more worried.

"Put him down," she hissed to her teammate. "That's ANBU."

"And the boy you're holding is the Sandaime's grandson," I added calmly. "If you'd like to avoid severe consequences, put him down immediately."

His eyes widened. He released Konohamaru, backing away from me warily, and at that moment, the Ichibi jinchuuriki chose to reveal himself.

"You're an embarrassment to our village, Kankuro," the boy said, a fanatical look in his pale sea foam eyes. Dark circles around his eyes immediately drew my attention, and I deduced it was from lack of sleep. Jagged, harrowing chakra radiated off of him, chilling the air and making Sasuke, having arrived on the opposite branch, look toward the Suna genin with suspicion.

The rest gasped at the sight of the redhead. He performed a _shunshin_, landing lightly on the ground beside his teammates, and gave me a wary onceover. I'd suppressed the Kyuubi's chakra to the best of my abilities, but still, he gave a surreptitious sniff, the scent of the Fox drifting through the air.

"I'm sorry for that," the jinchuuriki said evenly, eyes directed at me. I nodded once.

"Are you here for the Chuunin Exams?"

"Yes," the girl replied, looking at me with narrowed eyes. "You're short for an ANBU."

I only nodded again, sharply. "The Red Slash. You may have heard of me."

She sucked in a quick breath, as did her taller teammate. "I see. We'll be going, then."

They turned, striding away after quick nods to me, and were nearing the intersection when Sasuke leaped down as well, dark eyes shrewd. "What's your name?"

I swore I saw the blonde blush as she asked, "Me?"

"No. The gourd beside you."

Ichibi's container turned. Though he was shorter than his teammates, he had a much more menacing aura about him.

"Sabaku no Gaara."

Sea foam eyes studied Sasuke. "What's your name?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sasuke smirk. "Uchiha Sasuke."

The Uchihas were well-known, whether decimated or not. All of them showed just a slight inclination of having heard of the old clan. My clone scurried up behind us then, asking excitedly if the redhead—Gaara—wanted to know who he was as well, but Gaara dismissed him and met the challenging stare of Sasuke.

I cursed inwardly. Sasuke's competitiveness would be his downfall. I could imagine a future in which he competed with someone, found himself falling behind, and frustrated, did something drastic to further his own training, power his main focus. His brother, the international criminal, his ultimate opponent.

I couldn't let that happen.

"Leave immediately," I commanded, and they did so. Sasuke gave me an annoyed look, but soon enough, all of them dispersed once more, and I continued on my way to the Hokage's office, an inkling of suspicion in the back of my head. The commander's death, and the invasion of Konoha during the upcoming Chuunin Exams…Yakushi Kabuto, a genin, but with the abilities of a chuunin or a jounin…

I arrived at the Hokage's office, surprised to see several jounin assembled in front of the Sandaime, pipe in hand and smoke drifting upward. Pausing, I waited just outside the window, listening to the meeting inside and waiting to deliver my report after they left.

"It would also be interesting to crush them," Kakashi's languid voice floated through the window. There was just a hint of amusement in his voice, but apparently the man he was speaking with didn't catch on. Iruka's eyes narrowed in anger.

"What did you just say?"

"Joking aside," Kakashi continued, "Iruka-sensei, I understand what you want to say. But I also have something I want to say."

"Kakashi, enough already," Kurenai's mellifluous voice interrupted, wine-red eyes directed at her fellow jounin-sensei with rebuke.

"Stay out of this. They are not your students anymore. Now, they're my subordinates."

Kurenai closed her eyes. Tension rose in the room, judging by the hard look Kakashi sent Iruka and the furious expression on my old Academy teacher's face as the rest of the jounin remained completely silent.

Iruka began protesting again, but he was silenced by the Sandaime. The Sandaime then reassured him a preliminary exam would be given—and details were discussed. Once the meeting ended, I was finally able to give the Sandaime the information I'd acquired.

"Hokage-sama," I said, swiftly kneeling before his desk before straightening. "I have a suspect."

The Sandaime's face hardened. "Explain."

"It is Yakushi Kabuto. He is a genin, yet he displays skills far beyond that of a mere genin."

I went on to explain everything I'd found. All evidence (though scant) pointed to him; I had to commend him for covering up his tracks quite nicely—up until now, he'd stayed under the radar, and considering how many times he'd already failed the Chuunin Exam, that ability of subterfuge was admirable.

"Of course, it is not yet definite, sir," I concluded. "But I would like to make precautions beforehand just in case, and your opinion would be appreciated."

He waved for me to continue, expression grave.

"I'd like to keep from confronting him about this for now. However, I will assign several permanent ANBU to trail him and observe his day-to-day actions. They will report anything suspicious to me. I noticed earlier he was elected to, once again, take the Chuunin Exams—Hokage-sama, if I may ask, who are his teammates?"

The Sandaime, wrinkle lines crinkling as he frowned, rifled through a stack of papers before presumably locating the list of genin teams entering the Chuunin Exam.

"Akadō Yoroi and Tsurugi Misumi. You want them followed as well."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"And your reasons for having them followed and not confronted?"

"Evidence is not wholly conclusive. And waiting longer may eventually give us more reason to give a harsher punishment and keep him from weaseling out of anything by saying he hasn't done anything yet."

He nodded, appraising me. "Then I support your decisions. Go, Kitsune. Implement those plans."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." I paused. "I also have one more thing to report. It was something I happened to get caught up in as I was on my way here."

"Yes?"

I clenched my jaw. "The Ichibi jinchuuriki has arrived. Suna is going forward with their plans as we have previously discovered. His teammate happened to be threatening Konohamaru, Hokage-sama, so I intervened. I noticed three Oto-nin observing our confrontation as well. I cannot be sure what their intention was, however."

"Ah."

I became aware of a heavy tension in the air, and sketched a bow toward the Sandaime, having reported everything I felt was necessary to be reported to the Hokage. "By your leave, Hokage-sama."

He nodded absentmindedly, eyes grim and calculating as I left. He was worrying over the safety of the village and how best it would be kept. Meanwhile, I informed the ANBU I'd assigned on Yakushi's watch that they would be there for quite a while longer, possibly up until the Chuunin Exams and even during the Exam, in case Kabuto didn't do anything drastic until then. His actions seemed to be linked closer and closer to the Suna-Oto invasion, and I wanted to be cautious.

They accepted their role, and I called for several other ANBU to watch his teammates as well. In the end, it was two ANBU total for each genin—one for the day, and one for the night. These ANBU were specialized, more so than other ANBU as well, for subterfuge and secrecy, and I trusted them to keep their presences hidden from the genin. If they were discovered, that could spell disaster.

The rest of the day was spent fulfilling my duty as ANBU Commander. I completed all my paperwork with the help of my clones, and at 9:30 pm, retired for the night.

…

The next morning my genin team was given the Chuunin Exam applications. I cheered at receiving it, but inwardly, felt only dread at seeing the challenging smirk on Sasuke's face.

Kakashi gave us the instructions necessary for entering the Chuunin Exams, stating it was our choice, and our team was dismissed for the day. It was only when I separated from my teammates that Kakashi approached me once again, beckoning me silently to someplace more private.

We sat on my apartment roof, side by side, observing the view. A couple birds flew past, cawing as they flew, and my eyes remained riveted on them as Kakashi spoke.

"Naruto. You're Kitsune."

I nodded once, tensely. A quick exhalation from the man beside me.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

There was slight confusion, pain, and regret all at once in his voice. When I didn't answer immediately, he looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, Naruto."

I looked at my lap, my hands lying listlessly on my thighs. "Kakashi. I don't blame you for anything. Becoming ANBU…was the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in my life."

"I wanted Naruto—I wanted you to have a good, carefree childhood," Kakashi said, anguished. "I never wanted you to enter ANBU like that. I shouldn't have agreed to training you. You were only—"

"It doesn't matter what age I was," I cut him off. "What matters is that you were an awesome sensei. You still are. I'm grateful to you, so you shouldn't be—upset, or anything, that I didn't have a 'carefree childhood'—because I wouldn't have had one anyway. I grew up in the red light district, you know. I couldn't have integrated myself all that well into the orphanage, if I would even be allowed to integrate in the first place.

"Kakashi, I'm just glad you were there," I said, voice firm. "You helped me in the beginning. Whenever I freaked out about something, you calmed me down. You were like an older brother, or something as close to a father-figure as I could get. I know you regret not being able to take care of your sensei's kid, but you could barely take care of yourself at that time. Things played out pretty well, I would say. So don't look like that."

He stared at me, visible dark eye sad before he looked away. "If you say so, Naruto."

We fell into silence once again, and when I stood to leave, Kakashi stood as well and pulled me into a hug. It was uncomfortable, at first, and awkward too—neither of us were familiar with this, but I understood he was trying the best he could to convey that he cared. I wasn't completely alone, and I didn't have to shoulder every burden. I could talk to him if I wanted to, and for that, I was grateful.

"Thanks, Kakashi-sensei," I mumbled, my arms relaxing by my side again as I looked up at him. He appeared to smile at the address I gave him, and then I said, "Iruka? You don't need to keep waiting."

The visage of a cloaked Ame-nin appeared before the _henge_ faded and my old Academy instructor stood in his place. He looked at me oddly, and finally inclined his head at both of us.

"Kakashi, all of the, er, eight rookie genin passed. Naruto…you're—Kitsune?"

I grimaced. "Yeah. I hope you'll still treat me as Naruto, and not Kitsune?"

My genin instructor observed me for a moment, and then nodded, and I grinned at him. It wasn't a grin as big as Naruto's, but it wasn't the small, stiff smile I gave as Kitsune, either.

"Well, see ya later, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka…sensei," I said, waving at them, and with the visage of Naruto, I gave them both a wide grin, one that was easier than I expected, before leaping down into the streets of Konoha below.

…

**Ends on something of an odd note, but next chapter begins the chuunin exam arc. I think. I haven't written it yet, which is bad news for you guys, but the good news is that I'm finally on summer vacation. I can finally spend time writing, yayyy**

'**Kay, to those who didn't bother logging in or who are random guests who still reviewed:**

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**Guest (1) – Action will come when it comes, dude. :P But thanks for the review!**

**Guest (2) – Thank you!**

**Guest (3) – Well, the summary **_**does**_** specify that it's an ANBU universe, so…why bother clicking on the story if you find that cliché? And the juxtaposition between Naruto's physical abilities and mental mindset is purposely done to illustrate how he's trying to figure himself out—and I feel like he's actually pretty mature for a 12-year-old. **

**Guest (4) – Finally updated! Thanks for leaving a review!**

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**KK – hi xD thanks for reviewing :D**

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**Guest (7) – Naruto had to leave before explaining, because the other ANBU called Naruto on urgent business.**

**Grace – Thank you! **

**~paracuties**


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